Witnesses: Teen didn't throw that snowball

Teven Rutledge was, indeed, throwing snowballs at cars with two friends on Feb. 24, 2008 - his 15th birthday.

But the snowball that hit a stranger on the neck, leading to Rutledge's shooting death, was not thrown by him, according to court testimony yesterday by one of his snow-throwing friends and two teenage sisters.

Jose Omar Mendez, 25, on trial for killing Rutledge, became enraged upon seeing the unidentified Latino man pelted, and briefly conversed with the man in Spanish, sisters Catherine and Ahnri Briggs told a Common Pleas jury during the trial's second day.

While the man who had been pelted went on his way, Mendez pressed for a confrontation, even though he had not been hit by a snowball, the witnesses said.

" 'How would you like it if someone hit you in the face with snow?' " Catherine Briggs, 17, said Mendez asked Rutledge.

" 'But I didn't hit him,' " she said Rutledge replied.

Both sisters told the jury that as the argument escalated, Mendez threw snow in Rutledge's face, stripped down to his waist as if preparing to fight and started making threats.

" 'You better not be here when I get back,' " Ahnri Briggs, 15, recalled Mendez saying before leaving the sidewalk in front of a rowhouse on D Street near Rockland, in Feltonville.

The house is where Rutledge's two snow-throwing friends, brothers Wayne and Travis Davis, lived.

Travis Davis, 15, and the Briggs sisters, who live several doors away, said Mendez returned minutes later with a long-barreled gun and an argument ensued between him and Rutledge.

They said Rutledge uttered something to the effect of: " 'Man, you got the gun. Do what you got to do.' "

They said Mendez then shot Rutledge in the head, killing him.

Philadelphia Police Officer Jose Borrero told the court that when he arrived at the scene sometime after 3:15 p.m., he observed the youth lying unconscious with a gaping, smoking hole between his forehead and temple.

The snowball that apparently set off Mendez was thrown by Wayne Davis, the three teens said during questioning by Assistant District Attorney Deborah Watson-Stokes and defense attorney Lee Mandell.

"No matter what, snowball- throwing does not equal death ever, under any circumstances. Call the police, get a parent, stay in the house," Watson-Stokes said during a break in the trial.

Mandell has asserted that his client shot Rutledge in self-defense. Mendez, a native of Puerto Rico who is being aided in court by an interpreter, told police the victim jumped at him with a pocket knife just before he fired his illegally purchased gun.

"Someone has got to explain that knife," Mandell said during the break.

The three teen witnesses, along with Tara Davis, the Davis brothers' mother, testified that Rutledge never took the knife from his pocket during the confrontation.

Mendez is expected to take the witness stand when the trial resumes today, Mandell said.