QuickTake:

After a man shot by police in 2016 took the witness stand as part of a civil trial alleging excessive force and negligence, the officer who shot him testified Thursday and gave a different version of events.

A Eugene police officer fired his weapon after seeing the barrel of a gun being raised in his direction and the eyes of the man raising it, he told jurors on Thursday, Sept. 25, the fourth day of a civil trial in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Mark Hubbard testified about his shooting of Edgar T. Rodriguez. In a civil lawsuit, Rodriguez alleges excessive force, battery and negligence by police when he was shot multiple times in 2016.

Rodriguez had called 911 a few minutes before 1 a.m. on Sept. 10, 2016, for help dealing with an intoxicated houseguest behaving violently at his west Eugene apartment.

Assistant City Attorney Ben Miller asked Hubbard if he had considered whether Rodriguez had called 911 for help upon encountering him.

“I thought he was going to kill me. I didn’t care who this person was. I was needing to save my own life,” Hubbard testified. He told jurors he retired from the Eugene Police Department in January.

Hubbard’s testimony clashed with that of Rodriguez, who previously told jurors he held a .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol by its barrel and was en route to putting it in his vehicle for safekeeping.

Rodriguez previously testified that, upon first being hit by gunfire, he did not know it was a police officer who shot him.

Rodriguez also told jurors he stood perhaps two feet outside his apartment door when first shot, and that he flung the gun in a direction away from him.

Rodriguez’s location when first shot has been in dispute during the trial.

At one point during Thursday’s testimony, Hubbard stood up and, with Miller, demonstrated what he believed to be the approximate distance between himself and Rodriguez when the first shots were fired, which he said was perhaps six to 10 feet.

In front of the seated jurors, Hubbard stood to reenact what he said he saw Rodriguez do that night. Hubbard moved forward, his shoulders hunched and hands together, then raised them.

The gun was raised to point at Hubbard’s waistline, Hubbard testified.

Miller asked Hubbard if Rodriguez obeyed a command to drop the gun, but Rodriguez did not, Hubbard said. Hubbard described “reaching for my gun as fast as I can” and feeling that he was “out of time” and about to get shot. He testified he fired three rounds at Rodriguez while backing up, wanting to get away from him.

Derek Larwick, an attorney for Rodriguez, questioned Hubbard about why he told officers later at the scene that Rodriguez had a gun, but not that Rodriguez had tried to kill him. 

“I didn’t feel like it was pertinent information,” Hubbard said.

Larwick also asked Hubbard if he saw Rodriguez come out of his apartment.

“I did not see Mr. Rodriguez come out of his apartment, at all,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard also testified that Rodriguez “was not in front of his front door” when he encountered him.

Larwick referred to what he said was a statement from former Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns that Rodriguez had been encountered by police near the front door of his apartment.

“He did not get that information from me,” Hubbard said, adding that Kerns briefly checked on him the night of the shooting but that they did not discuss any details about what happened.

The lawsuit filed by Rodriguez names two officers, Hubbard and Timothy Hunt, as defendants, as well as the city of Eugene for “maintaining policies or customs exhibiting deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of people to whom their employees would interact with and respond to,” according to court documents.

The complaint, filed in 2018, also names as a defendant Faith McCready, an emergency dispatcher who answered Rodriguez’s call to 911. Testimony will continue Friday. The trial is expected to conclude next week.