The heroine who shielded a wounded police officer from a gun-toting cabdriver testified Thursday that she motioned with her hand in an opposite direction to divert the gunman`s attention from the officer.
Anne Claxton told a Cook County Criminal Court jury that the cabbie, Jamaljah Aliwoli, stood about 15 feet away when she vigorously pointed north to Racine Avenue in hopes of convincing him that the officer had fled in that direction.
Moments before, with the fallen officer, Daniel Duffy, lying wounded at her feet, Claxton said she restrained Duffy from rising when she saw Aliwoli pointing a gun and looking around for him.
”I said, `Get down` softly,” Claxton said. ”I pushed him to get his attention, and he got down.”
Aliwoli, 53, is on trial for the attempted murder of Duffy and two other officers who were injured in a running gun battle last March that started at 69th and Elizabeth Streets and ended after a chase at 65th Street and Racine Avenue.
Robert Lee and Nick Panarese, assistant public defenders, contend that Aliwoli suffered from a mental illness in which he felt persecuted by police. But Claxton, questioned by Assistant State`s Atty. John Eannace, said Aliwoli ”knew what he was doing.” Eannace is prosecuting the case with Gayle Shines.
Claxton, now 47, testified that she was in a car with her husband when she saw a scuffle break out involving Aliwoli and Duffy and his partner, Gregory Matura, after the officers stopped the cabbie for a traffic offense.
She heard two gunshots-one struck Matura in the hand-and then saw Aliwoli spin around and shoot Duffy in the chest.
”That`s when I came out of the car screaming for help,” said Claxton, who was awarded the city`s Medal of Valor for aiding Duffy, who lost a kidney because of his injuries.
Officer Dennis Mertz testified that he was shot in the face, hand and leg when Aliwoli drove slowly by his squad car on Racine Avenue near 64th Street shortly before he crashed his taxicab and was captured.
