A San Diego County sheriff's deputy shot after a heavy-metal concert in August, testified Monday that he knew his brother's call out for help was no joke.
The night before the shooting, the off-duty deputy, his brothers and their friends had attended the August 6 Metallica concert as part of a birthday celebration.
The group was leaving a bar after the concert when Deputy Jason Philpot's younger brother suddenly asked for help.
“He said ‘Help, he’s going to shoot me’ and the way he was grabbing my arm and the fear in his voice, I knew it wasn’t a joke,” Philpot testified Monday at a pre-trial hearing.
Philpot testified that when he saw the defendant holding the gun, he moved to keep the gunman from shooting anyone. That's when Philpot was shot in the chest and the arm.
"I fell down and I remember trying to grab him and take him to the ground as well," Philpot said. "I know that he fell to the ground somehow. We both scrambled to our feet. Knowing that I got shot in the chest, I thought that I was going to die."
A bystander, Vladimir Shitz, was also struck by one of the bullets. Shitz was in town for a conference at the San Diego Convention Center. Just before the shooting, he was looking for a place to eat with a work colleague when they heard a commotion nearby.
"I told my colleague to duck and run with me to the left," he testified adding that he soon noticed blood gushing out of a gunshot wound in his arm.
He asked passersby to take him to a nearby hospital where they cleaned up the wound but did not take the bullet out.
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He returned to the hospital in San Diego a second time and then went to the hospital twice in another state to be treated.
The man accused in the shooting, Ray Koloset Pitoau, took notes during the testimony.
His defense argued that the case should be thrown out because none of the witnesses, some of whom were trained law enforcement officers, could pick Pitoau out of a photo array.
However, Pitoau fled to Mexico after the shooting and was arrested at a home near Tijuana a month later. An international manhunt had been issued for him, which included a four-hour SWAT standoff in Spring Valley days after the shooting.
Prosecutors said that evidence from the scene of the shooting pointed their investigation toward Pitoau, but would not say exactly what that evidence was.
Pitoau has pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. His trial is scheduled to begin on February 13.
Pitoau is accused of shooting Philpot, an 11-year veteran sheriff's deputy, near Sixth and Island avenues on a sidewalk in front of the Gaslamp BBQ restaurant.
Under cross-examination, Philpot testified he was drinking alcohol before and during the concert.
Watch NBC 7 News at 4 p.m. for updates on this case.
