Former police officer Adam Coy took the witness stand in his murder trial Monday and told jurors he believed Andre Hill was about to shoot him with a silver revolver when he opened fire on the unarmed 47-year-old black man in the dark garage of a home in Columbus, Ohio.

“I thought I was going to die,” an emotional Coy, a former member of the Columbus Division of Police, testified about the fatal encounter with Hill on Dec. 22, 2020.

After firing four shots and approaching Hill, who lay bleeding on the garage floor, Coy said he reached for the gun he thought Hill was wielding only to find a large set of keys, an illuminated cell phone and a pack of cigarettes. close to your body.

“I got to a point where I was standing next to Mr. Hill and I pushed him back,” Coy testified. “I started looking for where the gun was and I saw a bunch of keys there and I was like, ‘Shit.'” “At that moment I knew I had made a mistake.”

Coy, 47, took the stand Monday after prosecutors concluded their case. Franklin County prosecutors called only six witnesses over three days and showed the jury seated in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas police body camera video that captured Coy shooting Hill, who was leaving the garage. of a friend holding a cell phone.

Prosecutors are expected to present a rebuttal case and call an expert witness in police training once the defense rests.

Coy, who is white, faces charges of murder, felony assault and manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.

If convicted, Coy faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

‘Something doesn’t add up here’

Under questioning by his defense attorney, Mark Collins, Coy said he responded to a non-emergency report of a suspicious vehicle parked on the street at 1:30 a.m. with the engine turning on and off.

Coy testified that when he arrived at the scene, he approached the vehicle that the 911 caller directed him to.

Coy said that as he approached the car, the driver, who turned out to be Hill, rolled down the window and handed him a cell phone.

“The driver says, ‘I’m waiting for someone to come out. They’ll be out in a second,'” Coy testified.

Coy said he wished Hill “good night” and returned to his patrol car and waited for the person to come out and meet Hill.

“He seemed wide-eyed, a little nervous and dismissive of me,” Coy said of Hill. “He wanted to break contact with me as soon as he could.”

Coy testified that after a few minutes, Hill got out of his car, went up to the porch of a house and knocked on the door, but got no response.

He said Hill then returned to his vehicle and rummaged through the front seat before returning to the house and knocking on the door again.

Coy said he asked Hill, “What’s going on?” But Hill ignored him.

He said Hill continued to look over his shoulder the second time he went to the front door of the house and knocked, but again got no answer.

“It makes you start thinking, ‘What is this person’s intention?'” Coy testified. “With the totality of everything that’s going on right now, I’m starting to have more reasonable suspicions that a crime is being committed and that he’s not being truthful with me.”

MORE: Police handcuffed Andre Hill’s body instead of helping him, family lawyer says

He testified that when his colleague, Officer Amy Detweiler, arrived at the scene, she had lost track of Hill and that the two officers decided to walk down the driveway of the house to determine Hill’s whereabouts.

Coy testified that he did not have his gun in his hand as he and Detweiler walked down the driveway.

He said he shined his flashlight into a dark, open garage looking for Hill.

“About this time I see a flicker of light in the back of the garage. Maybe two or three steps up the driveway, I see a flicker near the ground in the back corner of the garage,” Coy testified.

When he pointed his flashlight at the flickering light, he testified, “Mr. Hill is crouched in the back right corner of the garage.”

MORE: Andre Hill did not appear to pose any threat before he was shot, officer tells investigators

“I shine my flashlight on him and say, ‘Something doesn’t add up here. Come here, show yourself,'” Coy testified.

‘It was the worst night of my life’

Coy said Hill walked toward him holding his illuminated cell phone in his left hand. But Coy testified that Hill was walking next to a car parked in the garage and that he couldn’t see the man’s right side.

Coy claimed that Hill was “soft” or had adopted a “stance such as a boxer would adopt if he were going to fight.” He said he believed Hill was holding his cellphone as “a distraction.”

He said he was finally able to see Hill’s right side when he reached the back of the car parked in the garage.

“When he turns to you, what do you see?” -Collins asked.

Coy replied: “A silver revolver in his right hand.” Coy said it appeared Hill was raising the gun behind his leg and “coming toward me.”

“I pulled out my gun,” Coy said. “I yelled, ‘Gun! Gun!’ and I fired four shots.”

Collins asked, “Why did you fire four shots?”

Coy responded, “That’s what stopped him.”

Coy testified that when he realized he was wrong about what was in Hill’s right hand, he was “horrified.”

“It was the worst night of my life,” Coy testified. “I went into shock. I started dry heaving. I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t think straight. Everything became a blur for me.”

Coy ended his direct testimony by saying, “I saw an imminent threat and I didn’t want to get shot right before Christmas.”

The trial is expected to continue Tuesday.

‘I thought I was going to die’: Former Ohio police officer Adam Coy testifies in Andre Hill murder case originally appeared on abcnews.go.com