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Passenger testifies against driver in boy's death during police chase
Thursday, November 25, 1999 By Jim McKinnon, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
On the witness stand yesterday, Timothy Zotter didn't look like a hard-core juvenile delinquent who, last year, had tried to help a North Side man buy drugs only to end up in a police chase in which the get-away car hit a 7-year-old boy in Brighton Heights.
Zotter, now an 18-year-old Oliver High School senior, was 16 when the car in which he was riding on June 22, 1998, slammed into Raymond Michelotti as the boy rode a bicycle near his home on Gas Avenue.
Zotter testified yesterday in the homicide trial of the driver, Jamal Tait, 21.
Throughout his testimony, Zotter never looked toward the defense table, although he quickly pointed in that direction when asked by Deputy District Attorney Edward Borkowski to identify Tait.
His eyes remained averted as he took a seat behind Raymond's family.
Tait glowered, his eyes following the witness's every move.
Tait had been charged with third-degree homicide. In August, prosecutors added charges of homicide by vehicle and homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence. The latter charges came after Zotter told Borkowski that he, Tait and two other youths in the vehicle had smoked marijuana together before the fatal crash.
Zotter, the grandson of a retired Pittsburgh police officer, testified that he did not know Tait, who drove up to him on Shadeland Avenue and introduced himself as Shawn.
Zotter, who has not been charged, said that he agreed to help Tait find marijuana to buy.
He testified that, when he met Tait, he was on juvenile probation because he had gotten caught with marijuana at Northgate High School. He said that when the foursome was smoking pot, he did not inhale because he had a pending urinalysis in connection with his probation.
The group got into trouble when Tait got into an argument with the Rosell family on Spruce Run Road because family members had yelled at him for driving too fast on their street. During the altercation, Tait pulled a pistol and threatened to shoot Richard Rosell, according to testimony over the last two days.
Minutes later, after the Rosells called police, Zotter said his group found themselves being pursued.
"I was in shock," Zotter testified. "[Tait] threw the gun in my lap and told me to throw it out the window."
As Tait wended his way through Bellevue and Brighton Heights, Zotter said that he lost his bearings until they sped up the hill on Gas Avenue, a street which he was familiar with from living in nearby Bellevue.
"[I] knew something bad was going to happen," Zotter said. "I knew he was going too fast for going up that hill."
As they crested the hill, the sport utility vehicle Tait was driving went airborne. As they headed down the hill, the vehicle bounced into the air again just as Zotter said he saw children riding bicycles in the street at the bottom.
"We were in the air and he hit the brakes," Zotter testified.
The next thing he remembered, Zotter said, was opening his eyes in a smoke-filled vehicle with the other occupants helping to push him through the broken rear window. They all fled the scene of the accident only to be picked up by police a short distance away.
At that time none of them was sure whether the children had been struck.
Carole Hogan, who lives nearby, said she saw the accident as it developed.
She heard the roar of Tait's engine as he barreled down the hill. The vehicle was airborne as it passed her house, she testified.
Hogan said she yelled for the children to watch out. She said Raymond looked up into her face, but he didn't have time to get out of the intersection.
John Wanat testified that he saw Raymond's small body, battered, bloody and limp in the arms of his mother, Kathy Michelotti.
"It was something that I'll never forget as long as I live," Wanat said. "Something I hope I never, ever see again."
The trial will resume Monday.
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