MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A woman claims she was acting in self-defense when she shot and killed a man who was fighting with her brother outside a Southwest Miami-Dade strip club last year.
Kimberly Matthews attended a stand-your-ground hearing Monday.
"After asking everyone to get back, I seen one of the guys go in his pocket. I automatically felt threatened," Matthews said in court.
Police said Matthews fatally shot Terrence Henderson, 25, outside The Office Gentleman's Club April 20, 2014.
Surveillance video showed Matthew's brother, Colin, who is a local rapper, performing onstage shortly before the fight in the club's parking lot.
Her brother spoke to the judge Monday morning, saying that some of his acquaintances, whom he had loaned money to, came into the club and he believed they were looking for trouble.
The brother admitted to participating in the brawl outside the club, but said he was defending himself, and his sister, who was armed with a gun, was doing the same.
"There were people swarming us, and I just swung again to try to them up off of us," Colin Matthews said.
"She has a concealed weapons permit and she did what she had to do," said Matthews' attorney, Michael Grieco. "I think, looking back on it, she would probably do it again."
The prosecutor claims the brother's statements after the shooting show that the incident was not self-defense.
"You don't remember saying to your sister, 'Why did you shoot him? I had him,'" said prosecutor Suzanne Von Paulus.
"No," said Colin Matthews.
Terrance Henderson's brother, Tracy Henderson also wasn't convinced that the shooting was self defense.
"She didn't have anything to do with it," said Tracy Henderson. "I don't think it was self defense."
If the judge believes the stand-your-ground defense applies in Matthews' case, she will be a free woman. If not, she will likely go to trial for murder.
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