GRETNA, La. -- The man who killed former NFL player Joe McKnight was terrified and fired in self-defense as the athlete spewed obscenities and threats following a traffic confrontation in December 2016, a defense attorney told a jury Friday.
Lawyer Matthew Goetz added that the arrest of Ronald Gasser, 56, came days after the shooting amid political pressures. Goetz alluded to racial unrest that year in American cities, including the St. Louis area and Baton Rouge. Gasser is white; McKnight was black.
Goetz delivered his opening statement to the jury in Gasser's second-degree murder trial after Seth Shute, an assistant District Attorney in Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, acknowledged that Gasser was initially freed after the shooting.