Witness in Grant Park shooting case has leg amputated after attack

The “critical witness” in the case against a man charged with killing a Grant Park bartender had to have his leg amputated Tuesday, further threatening the prosecution of the accused gang member, Fulton County’s district attorney said.

The witness, identified in court this week as Eddie Pugh, was shot over the weekend while working on a car.

The shooting concerns law enforcement officials because this the third time in the past four months that witnesses in cases against violent gang members have been attacked.

The witness was “very critical in our being able to connect the case" to defendant Jonathan Redding, a suspected member of the street gang 30 Deep, District Attorney Paul Howard said Wednesday.

Atlanta police are investigating whether the shooting of the witness was connected to the murder case. “But it doesn’t take a fool to see this is quite a coincidence,” Howard said, adding that the man was not a gang member and was, in fact, the victim in another alleged attack by Redding.

The trial in the Jan. 7, 2009, shooting death of bartender John Henderson was scheduled to start Monday and was postponed until at least next month. Now that trial date is uncertain. “That’s really bad news for us,” Howard said.

The prosecutor pointed out that a witness in the recent murder trial of 30 Deep leader George “Keon” Redding was beaten in jail while waiting to testify. Keon Redding, who is Jonathan’s cousin, was convicted last week of killing two men and wounding two others.

One of the men wounded had witnessed one of the killings and was shot four times by Keon Redding. That witness survived. When he refused to testify, prosecutors arrested him and put him in jail. He later testified.

Henderson’s killing by a robbing crew at the now defunct Standard Food & Spirits rallied Atlanta residents and forced violent street crime to be one of the major issues in the mayoral race that year.

Pugh, a convicted cocaine dealer, was accidentally instrumental in the capture of Jonathan Redding, who was 17 when Henderson was killed.

Redding and two other men allegedly invaded Pugh’s southwest Atlanta apartment on Jan. 9, 2009, just two days after the Standard bar robbery. In the second attack, Pugh saw the men running toward him, firing pistols, according to police reports. Pugh was wounded in the hip and his partner retaliated with an AK-47, striking Redding in the shoulder, police said. The apartment -- both inside and out -- was riddled with bullet holes.

Redding was arrested later that night after checking into a hospital. Police said he left his blood and a damaged gun at the scene. The gun was tied to the Henderson killing, and in May 2009 Redding was charged with murder.

But the slaying and robberies still are shrouded in mystery because Redding has refused to cooperate with authorities. Howard, in desperation, secured an order from a judge requiring Redding to testify before the grand jury about the names of his confederates. His testimony could not be used against him but the tactical move yielded no apparent results.

Neither of his two comrades has been arrested.

Five days after he was attacked and shot, Pugh was arrested in a drug sting at another apartment complex. Police said Pugh tried to throw away a baggie with crack cocaine and was charged with possession with intent to sell.

Court records show Pugh was arrested for cocaine possession in March 2008 and received a suspended sentence despite being put on a 10-year probation in 2007 for the same charge.

A 2009 story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution concerning Redding’s arrest quoted Pugh’s neighbors as saying he had gone into hiding, fearing his attacker’s partners would return.