A chest wound inflicted by a former Raleigh County sheriff’s deputy traveled a downward path in Robert Webb after a fellow lawman shot him in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun five years ago at Cabell Heights, a deputy state medical examiner testified Thursday.
Dr. Zia Sabet’s testimony in U.S. District Court at Beckley could provide the plaintiff, Webb’s widow, Mary, a key point in wrapping up the case against Cpl. Gregory Kade, a former deputy, John Hajash, and a co-defendant, the Raleigh County Commission.
Questioned by attorney Michael Olivio, the physician said the chest wound inflicted with a .40-caliber Glock Model 23 handgun used by Hajash in Webb’s driveway in the wee hours of July 4, 2006, entered the chest and came to rest in his lower back.
Sabet said the first blow came from a Remington Model 870 shotgun, wielded by Kade, and traveled upward into the brain in a right-to-left fashion.
His testimony implied that the 6-foot-4 Webb was down, on the driveway when Hajash shot him in the chest.
Hajash acknowledged he fired again but said the view was partially obscured, and it appeared Webb was rolling, possibly to get in a position to return fire, and he responded just as he had been trained to do in such a circumstance.
“You fire until a threat is stopped,” he said.
During cross-examination by Chip Williams, one of the defense attorneys, Sabet acknowledged that nothing could have been done medically to save Webb, with the brain damage done by the shotgun, and the aorta ripped apart by the pistol wound.
“Impossible,” the veteran forensic pathologist said. “Nothing.”
A critical claim in the plaintiff’s case is that the two police officers delayed medical attention so that photographs could be taken at the scene.
Another witness, the county’s own medical examiner, Brian Bjork, read a summary by the medical team dispatched to Webb’s home in Cabell Heights that included this statement:
“We were told not to touch the patient until photos were taken.”
A day earlier, an EMS worker testified that within five minutes after they arrived, the regional command was contacted, and a doctor advised the team, “do not resuscitate.”
After arriving in the neighborhood around 1:30 a.m., Bjork said he was delayed some 90 minutes from reaching the driveway by another sheriff’s deputy.
“I would have to consider it odd,” Bjork said, adding at one point he found himself in a “difficult” position testifying in the case, since he is a friend of the Webb family, as well as the two officers involved.
Before resting, Olivio and his Charleston law partner, Travis Griffith, called a final witness — one of Webb’s former neighbors, Christie Richmond, whose last name at the time was Hatfield.
She told the jury that at no time did she hear the officers issue Webb the warning, “Police — show us your hands,” and was “absolutely” certain she would have picked up on that had the officers done so.
“I have no doubt I would have heard it,” she said.
When she raced to the Webb home to check on the commotion, Richmond said she asked the officers, “Is he dead?” and one of them told her, “If he’s not, he soon will be.”
With Webb sprawled out on the driveway in a pool of blood, the officers seemed indifferent to his death, she testified.
“They weren’t very sympathetic,” she said. “Very nonchalant. Just another day.”
Hajash corroborated the earlier testimony of Kade — that the pair sought to encircle Webb but were blocked by a padlocked gate and decided against trying to scale the fence, since it would rattle and likely give their presence away.
As Kade testified, Hajash said Webb was told in a loud and distinct voice that they were police officers and he needed to show them his hands.
But at that stage, he said, Webb wheeled around with a semi-automatic rifle shouldered, “and I thought we were going to get shot.”
Kade testified earlier that police recovered a full banana clip from the rifle, and a live, 7.62mm shell in the chamber.
Bob McComas, a retired state trooper who also has been police chief in both Sophia and Kenova, said police officers are trained to use the engine blocks of patrol cars as shields from gunmen, but conceded, “Every call is a different situation.”
Another witness, Dan Seldy, a certified public accountant in Charleston, said he figured that Webb would have earned as much as $211,562 while self-employed as a concrete mason, had he lived out his working years, and up to $530,730 if he had been employed by someone else. For household services, he told the court Webb would have been worth between $172,990 and $193,074 had he lived until the normal retirement age.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger has indicated the trial would last seven days, which would take it through Tuesday.

By Mannix Porterfield Register-Herald Reporter — E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com