'Street Justice' not OK for jury in Promenade Park homicide
- Jamie Duffy
- Jul 9
- 2 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ----Homelessness is a pitiable state. No money, no place to lay your head, no food in the larder and, most likely, the burden of trauma that sent you to the streets in the first place.
And it’s dangerous. Danger was the case one cold January evening when Lamont Cooley, 24, stabbed Anthony Wamue to death in the family bathroom at the Promenade Park Pavilion.
The stabbing Jan. 4 of this year around 7:30 p.m. sparked outrage and further fear among some residents that it just isn’t safe to go downtown.
What happened was a drama in the local homeless community on display through video, testimony and evidence this week in Allen Superior Court.
Lamont Cooley was charged with murder, and after four hours of deliberation Wednesday, the jury found Cooley guilty. .
Anthony Wamue, also known as “Africa,” had been drinking and had turned off the lights in the family bathroom at the Pavilion at Superior and Harrison streets, a recent downtown feature that’s fostered pride and achievement for turning the drab riverfront into something special.
Wamue was waylaying women in the family bathroom, and “grabbing their crotch,” Cooley’s defense attorney, Robert Scremin, said during closing arguments Wednesday.
Lierin Rossman was also an attorney for the defense.
Someone named Brandi complained and so Cooley aka “Youngblood” went in to take care of the situation and said he was confronted by Wamue who pulled out a knife, Scremin said.
Wamue was stabbed several times, the fatal stab going 5.5 inches deep into the chest, breaking the breast bone. Lead deputy prosecutor Rachel Gschwend said it would have been difficult to last 10 minutes with that kind of injury.
But even if Cooley admitted to the stabbing, declaring self defense, was there anyone else who could have stabbed ‘Africa’ during the hour-long period before police were called?
“A cavalcade of people were in and out of that bathroom” for at least an hour “trampling that crime scene,” Scremin posited.
The murder weapon was never definitely found although when Cooley was picked up, he had a knife on him, Likely a pocket knife of some sort is a homeless person’s necessity for all kinds of things.
But even with the doubt raised by Scremin, Chief Counsel Prosecuting Attorney Tesa Helge rammed home the idea during closings that no matter how you slice it, Cooley admitted to stabbing Wamue.
“If he killed Anthony Wamue and he’s not entitled to self defense, that’s murder,” Helge said. Not only was he stabbed 5 .5 inches deep breaking a bone but two more times in the abdomen and in the head.
It wasn’t a case of “just trying to hurt someone,” she reasoned and street justice is not the same as “the law in a courtroom like this.”
Cooley will be sentenced Aug. 4 at 1 p.m.
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