These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
Settle in: This is a long one, complete with an epilogue and over 24 sources.
The story starts — and ends — with Phillip Shaw. He hadn’t been allowed to have a gun for a long time. He had convictions in Hamilton County for burglary and for trafficking marijuana, and a federal conviction for heroin trafficking and gun charges that got him ten years in prison in 2013. He was 40, and still under federal supervision.
He’s apparently unaware of these laws, because otherwise he surely would obey them, right? But no, he had one anyway while he was outside the 629 Sports Bar at about 2:30 AM after a late Saturday night.
Several people were arguing in the parking lot. There was a scuffle, and then Shaw and another man — 36-year-old Mack Ogletree, an off-duty Cincinnati firefighter with a concealed carry license and no criminal record — were shooting at each other.
Shaw was grazed in the head. A woman sitting in a car in the lot was hit in the arm, and the bullet never came out: She tried to have it surgically removed, but they couldn’t do it.
Rounds hit a house nearby, too. “They’re hitting my house ... We’re not hit but I’ve got kids in here and everything. Please hurry,” one neighbor told a 911 dispatcher.
Breonna Schwarm, 16, watched from her bedroom window. She was in the house with her parents, her brother, a friend, and her 4-year-old sister. “I was really shaky. I was scared that there was people dead,” she said.
Nobody was dead, and nobody in her house was hit. By the time police got there, the parking lot had no victims in it either. The two wounded turned up separately at a hospital.
More than a month later, Ogletree — the CCL holder with no record — reported for an overtime shift at a firehouse and was taken into custody. The charge was two counts of felonious assault, and the indictment made it four. The fire department, where he’d worked a little over a year, put him on unpaid leave.
Prosecutors called Shaw “the victim.” How the shooting started depended on which hearing you attended. At the first one, the assistant prosecutor said this:
The defendant engaged in an altercation at the 629 Bar; at one point, the defendant left and retrieved a firearm from his vehicle.
Ogletree then pointed it at Shaw, the prosecutor said, and Shaw went and got a gun of his own.
A couple of weeks later, a different assistant prosecutor told it differently:
The defendant comes up with a gun in his hand and starts yelling at them, points the firearm in the direction and then starts shooting the firearm. At that point, the male victim produces his own firearm and returns fire.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported a third version from prosecutors: a fight among a group of people was de-escalating when Ogletree started shooting at Shaw.
Ogletree’s attorney, Brandon Fox, said it was the other way around. “This is a self-defense case. My client is a legal CCW owner. He was fired upon by a convicted felon. He returned fire. It’s on video.”
WLWT obtained the video, of which you can see a portion in the news clip below.
Unfortunately, watching the video doesn’t help us much. Both Ogletree and Shaw are black and have long hair, and the resolution’s not great. Even the news reports note that it’s hard to tell who is whom. I’m sure the police know who’s who.
The magistrate at that second hearing didn’t rule on any of it, but did say from the bench, “It appears there could be a very valid self-defense argument.” Ogletree posted a $50,000 bond and was still in jail three days later, waiting for an electronic monitoring unit to become available.
Shaw, meanwhile, picked up a charge of his own: being a felon in possession of a gun.
The trial was set for a Monday in March, in front of a judge and no jury — but it never started. The assistant prosecutor told the court why:
I am not ready to proceed today. As the court is well aware, there are two victims in this matter, one of which is facing his own criminal charges. He is intending to plead the Fifth Amendment today.
So the state’s “victim” wouldn’t testify about a gunfight he couldn’t legally have brought a gun to.
The woman from the car didn’t come to court, for the second time. The prosecutor said she had “expressed her desire not to come down.” Ogletree’s defense attorney told the judge it wouldn’t have mattered:
She told the police repeatedly she didn’t see who was shot. She was intoxicated. She was passed out in the car when the shooting occurred. So even if they had the medical records, even if they had her here, it doesn’t add anything to the case against Mr. Ogletree.
He asked for a dismissal, and the judge granted it.
“Unfortunately, this happens from time to time,” a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said. “Victims and witnesses do not always want to cooperate. That does not make it any less disappointing that this case was dismissed.”
Ogletree’s attorney Fox was less disappointed: “We were confident that we would have received a not guilty verdict, even if everyone would have shown up.”
It’s worth noting that Ogletree wasn’t acquitted: His case was dismissed without prejudice.
“Mack is a protector. He’s a family man. He’s always going to protect those around him, and that’s what happened that night,” Fox said. “He’s looking forward to getting back to work, getting back to providing for his family.”
The fire department said its command staff would meet to decide what came next.
For six months, the firefighter with the carry license and no record was the defendant, and the felon with the gun was the victim.
Epilogue
Seven months after the judge dismissed the case against Ogletree, a 34-year-old man named Justin Johnson left a bar in downtown Cincinnati at about 2 AM on a Friday morning, a few hours after a Bengals home game, and got into his BMW. A vehicle pulled up alongside, and someone inside it started shooting. Johnson died at the scene.
Police arrested 50-year-old Robert Shaw the same day. He was out on bond in a pending gun case, with convictions for illegally possessing a gun in 2003, 2011, and 2015, and he was wearing an ankle monitor: Its data is how police placed him at the shooting.
Nearly five months later, they arrested his brother: Phillip Shaw, by then1 41.
A grand jury indicted Phillip Shaw on one count of aggravated murder, three counts of murder, two of felonious assault, and three of having weapons while under disability, along with theft and receiving stolen property. His bond was set at $1 million.
Prosecutors said the brothers targeted Johnson, though they couldn’t say why. By their account, the two sat in a truck stolen out of Kentucky, carrying a license plate stolen from a car whose owner was at the game, waiting for him to leave the bar.
“There were approximately two guns fired and around 23 shots were fired in total,” the assistant prosecutor told the court at Shaw’s bond hearing.
Incidentally, that assistant prosecutor is the same one who, at Ogletree’s second hearing, had called Shaw “the male victim.”
The magistrate was the same, too: The one who’d said that Ogletree might have a very valid self-defense argument. This time, the magistrate said that Shaw had served ten years for drug trafficking and had “some violence” on his record.
In court, Phillip Shaw’s public defender said that Shaw’s last conviction was in 2012. What happened to felon-in-possession charge from the 629 Sports Bar?
I don’t yet see follow-up information about this incident for either Shaw.
Seven months before Johnson died, the prosecutor’s office had called it disappointing that it couldn’t try the man who shot at Phillip Shaw.
Sources
News — main incident
WLWT obtained video of the shooting and the 911 audio, and quoted both sides in court.
Cincinnati Fire Department employee charged with felonious assault (Arrest)
Video shows gun battle outside Colerain sports bar, Cincinnati firefighter arrested (Video and 911 calls)
Cincinnati firefighter claims he fired gun outside bar in self defense (Second hearing)
Assault charges dismissed against Cincinnati firefighter after shooting outside bar (Dismissal)
The Cincinnati Enquirer named the other shooter and laid out his record. Its dismissal story is paywalled; both articles were read as syndicated on Yahoo!
Attorney: Cincinnati firefighter involved in Colerain bar shootout acted in self-defense (Self-defense claim)
Charges dismissed against Cincinnati firefighter involved in gun battle outside bar (Dismissal)
WCPO ran two articles, first the shooting, then the arrest.
Police: Two shot at sports bar in Colerain Township (Original incident)
Cincinnati firefighter arrested, charged with felonious assault for Colerain Township bar shooting (Arrest and first hearing)
FOX19 followed the case from the shooting to the dismissal.
Two people hospitalized after shooting near bar in Colerain Township, police say (Original incident)
Cincinnati Fire Department firefighter charged in August shooting in Colerain Twp. (Arrest; Enquirer copy)
Cincinnati firefighter arrested in double shooting (First hearing)
Cincinnati firefighter pleads not guilty again in connection with double shooting (Second hearing)
Charges dropped against Cincinnati firefighter in connection with double shooting (Dismissal)
I can find three articles from Local 12.
2 people injured in Colerain Township bar shooting (Original incident)
Cincinnati firefighter arrested in connection to double shooting at bar (First hearing)
Charges dropped against Cincinnati firefighter for shooting as trial was set to begin (Dismissal)
Firefighter Held After Gunfire Near Cincinnati Sports Bar (Thin Line News)
News — epilogue
The Cincinnati Enquirer ran five articles, all read as syndicated on Yahoo!
Police release name of man killed in apparent Downtown drive-by shooting (Original incident)
Police make arrest after man killed in apparent drive-by shooting in Downtown (First arrest)
Gunman in Downtown drive-by shooting was wearing an ankle monitor after weapons charge (Robert Shaw’s record)
Police make second arrest connected to October homicide (Second arrest)
$1 million bond for second man charged in October Downtown drive-by (Bond hearing)
FOX19 interviewed Johnson’s father.
Gunman opens fire in downtown Cincinnati, killing 1 (Original incident)
$2M bond for murder suspect in Downtown shooting (First arrest)
Second arrest made in ‘targeted’ fatal shooting in Downtown Cincinnati (Second arrest and indictment)
Grieving father honors son killed in Downtown shooting (Interview)
WCPO ran two articles, first the arrest of Robert Shaw, then of Phillip Shaw.
$2 million bond set for man accused of shooting, killing man in downtown (First arrest)
Police: Second man arrested after fatal October shooting downtown (Second arrest)
Second arrest made in murder of a man in Downtown Cincinnati (Local 12)
Can I forensically prove that it’s the same Phillip Shaw? The sources don’t say so, but consider:
Same name
Right age
Right convictions in his record
Someone prove to me it’s not the same guy, and I’ll eat my shirt while publishing a retraction.
What a mess! The dismissal grounds certainly seem to vindicate Mr. Ogletree. Why plead the Fifth when you've already been charged with the gun felony? I don't see how he would have gotten out of that one just because he wouldn't testify -- though it appears he might have, I guess. What a world we live in.