A gang expert witness said Wednesday that the beating in which nine men punched Sgt. Juwan Johnson more than 200 times was a Gangster Disciples rite of passage that went wrong. Detective John Bowman, head gang investigator with the Killeen, Texas, Police Department, testified Wednesday as a gang crimes expert witness during the court martial.
Twenty-two year-old Pvt. Terrence Norman is charged with involuntary manslaughter in Johnson’s death. Johnson was scheduled to leave the Army three weeks after the date of his beating. Expert witness Bowman said he never heard of a “jump-in ceremony” happening so close to the time a person was set to leave the area where a gang operated. If convicted on all charges, Norman could spend 19 years behind bars. Stars and Stripes also reports:
Expert witness Col. Kathleen Ingwersen, the medical examiner who performed Johnson’s autopsy, testified that the 25-year-old died from multiple blunt force injuries and that, medically, Johnson’s death was a homicide….The autopsy showed Johnson suffered severe injuries to his brain and heart.