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Apr 21, 2007 9:03 am US/Eastern
Trooper: Braunstein Stabbed Himself Repeatedly
'Fake Firefighter' Trial Opens With Memphis Capture
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―
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Peter Braunstein's lawyer says he is not fit to stand trial because of injuries suffered while behind bars.
CBS
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Peter Braunstein is scheduled to go to trial on a multitude of charges stemming from an attack on Oct. 31, 2005. (File photo)
CBS
A police officer testified Friday that he doused sex-abuse suspect Peter Braunstein with pepper spray and threatened to shoot him to make the fugitive stop stabbing himself and drop his knife.
Tennessee police Officer James B. Johnson said he found Braunstein on Dec. 16, 2005, after a student reported she had spotted a man on the University of Memphis campus that day hours after he was featured on the "America's Most Wanted" television show.
Johnson said he also had seen a report on Braunstein that morning on a local TV news show, saying the fugitive had been seen in Memphis trying to sell his blood at a local blood bank.
Johnson said that while he was riding around the campus in his patrol car in the afternoon, he spotted a man walking and said to himself, "OK. That's him."
"He looked back at my squad car and he looked like he picked up his pace," said Johnson, a Tennessee state police officer assigned to the university campus.
Johnson turned on his roof lights and pulled in front of Braunstein. The fugitive held a knife up near his own face, the witness said, and "started puncturing himself in the neck with the tip of the knife."
"Then he started sticking it in deeper into his neck," Johnson said. "He stabbed himself three or four times on the right side of the neck."
At that point, Johnson said, he blasted Braunstein with pepper spray and aimed his gun at him. After eight to 10 jabs at his neck, Braunstein stopped stabbing himself, turned around and said, "OK. I give up," Johnson testified.
"I told him to get down on the ground or I'd shoot him," Johnson said.
Johnson said he asked the fugitive whether he had more weapons other than the double edged dagger he had used on his neck and Braunstein replied that he had a gun. The officer said he took a BB gun from the suspect's pocket.
Johnson said he asked the man his name and he replied, "Peter Braunstein," and passed out. An ambulance took Braunstein to a Memphis hospital.
Braunstein, wearing gray jail coveralls and an orange jail smock in court, seemed to listen attentively during the hearing, which is being held to determine whether he was legally arrested and searched in Memphis.
Braunstein, 42, is accused of pretending to be a firefighter so that he could get into the apartment of a 34-year-old former Women's Wear Daily co-worker, whom prosecutors say he sexually abused for 13 hours starting Halloween night 2005.
Prosecutors say the defendant wore a firefighter's outfit and set a fire in the hallway outside the woman's apartment before banging on her door, prosecutors said. He was on the run for six weeks afterward before Johnson captured him.
Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to arson, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, sexual abuse and assault charges.
Robert C. Gottlieb, Braunstein's lawyer, says he will present trial evidence that his client was mentally ill at the time of the alleged attack on the woman and therefore should not be held criminally responsible for it.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
