Looking for answers about the night Chris Doerue was killed

Excerpt

The AGN went to the Potter County Detention Center seeking information about the night Chris Doe rue was killed. What did we learn?

The visitors area of the Potter County Detention Center isn't too different from what one sees in the movies.

A glass window and concrete walls separate visitors from the inmates, albeit the windows are much smaller than they are in the movies — vertically shaped rectangles as opposed to large squares.

Leonard Hakizimana and Jeremiah Ntirampeba were due up in the alphabetical visitors rotation. Neither were aware that the AGN had come to speak with them about why they were in there.

More: From Ivory Coast refugee camp to Amarillo, the story of former Tascosa standout Chris Doerue

Hakizimana was the first to come in. After looking around through the various visitation windows, he sat down with a confused look on his face. His disposition was quiet; his voice hardly audible through the other end of the phone. It seemed as though he may not have much to say.

He didn't.

Hakizimana twice declined to talk about what happened the night Chris was killed. He seemed confused by most of the questions asked and gave conflicting answers. He did confirm three things:

He was invited through the extended family of Alpha's girlfriend, he and Ntirampeba are cousins, and neither he nor Ntirampeba had ever met Chris before that night.

Otherwise, nothing.

Hakizimana provided no further insight into what happened to Chris, why it happened, or how he ended up in an orange jumpsuit at Potter County Detention Center. He barely said a word.

The opposite was true of his cousin.

Ntirampeba entered the visitors area and flashed a smile. He struggled in his attempts to figure out how to work the phone line. On his third go around, he seemed to let out a laugh.

Once Jeremiah figured out how to use the phone, he was more than willing to talk — unlike Leonard.

Jeremiah said he didn't know anyone at the party. He confirmed Leonard was the one who was invited and brought him along as his cousin. He said he just moved to Amarillo from Houston a few months ago and originally hails from Tanzania. He's lived in America since he was 7.

“I just thought I was going to a party,” he said. “I didn’t expect what happened to happen. It was a lovely day and I didn’t intend any harm.”

Jeremiah described being in line for food at some point in the evening. He says several children were in front of him in line when Chris cut ahead of them all. He claims he pointed this out to Chris, but nothing happened immediately afterward.

Later, however, he said he observed Chris and Leonard arguing over something farther away.

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Jeremiah said at some point Chris approached him and began yelling at him. He says he can't recall exactly what Chris was saying, but that his response seemed to trigger Chris in some way.

“I told him that he should be more respectful,” Jeremiah said. “I said ‘There’s women, kids, other people here. There’s no need to be yelling. You should respect these other people. We’re all African here. Have some respect.’ Well, something about that he didn’t like, because he got way more mad.

“He started yelling even louder, talking about he was going to whoop me, do this, do that, and all sorts of things. I didn’t want any part of that, so me and Leo decided to leave.”

This differed from Junior's recollection of the events that led up to the shooting. Jeremiah's version of the shooting itself was the polar opposite of Junior's description.

Jeremiah claims that after he and Leonard went outside, Chris followed them. He says Chris continued to yell and was attempting to approach them, but he was being held back by several women who Jeremiah believed to be the Doerue sisters. He said they were unable to contain him, however, as "he was a big dude."

Wayland listed Chris at 5-foot-8 and the first word Jackson used to describe him was "undersized."

Jeremiah says that while Chris was attempting to break free, Leonard pulled out a gun that Jeremiah said is legally registered. However, Leonard supposedly dropped the weapon upon taking it out. This was when Jeremiah says Chris broke free and began to charge at them.

Jeremiah, who describes himself as devoutly Christian, says he began to fear for his life.

“I prayed to God in that moment,” he said. “I was raised by God as a Christian. I prayed for a pathway out of that situation. I didn’t know if he had a knife or anything, and I saw him running at me. God answered my prayers because my cousin, he dropped his gun. It fell right in front of me, I picked it up and I shot him.”

Jeremiah says he pulled the trigger one time. Junior also said that only one gunshot was fired.

From there, Jeremiah said he and Leonard got in the car and took off. Jeremiah says one of the other men at the party was holding "what looked like a gun," which is what caused them to flee. Both he and Leonard said they didn't go far before they decided to return to the scene, matching Junior's recollection of events.

“I told (Leonard) we should go back because we weren’t wrong in that situation,” Jeremiah said. “If we try to run and avoid what we did, we’d be in the wrong. So we went back 'cause we know God is on our side.”

When talking about what happened, Jeremiah framed the situation as one caused by Chris. He calls shooting Chris in self-defense and says God saved his life.

“I’m 19, but I’m mature," Jeremiah said. "I respect that was someone else’s house. He wasn’t mature and didn’t have respect like that. He was thinking like a kid. ... I asked God for help. God gave me an answer. I felt danger and God gave me a way out of it.”

Leonard is being represented by Jesse Quackenbush while Jeremiah is represented by Ethan Murphy, both of whom declined to discuss specifics of the case.

Junior was adamant that Chris was shot in the back of the head. In Jeremiah's version, he shot Chris in the front.

Due to the investigation still being ongoing, the AGN was denied access to the police reports.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a four-part series on the life and death of former Tascosa standout Chris Doerue.

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