Columbus man said fatal gym shooting over hoops dispute was self-defense. A jury disagreed

After a Franklin County jury found a man guilty of murder for a fatal shooting after a pickup basketball game at a Columbus gym, two mothers had tears in their eyes.

The mother of Tae'Von Bush, 20, approached the mother of 23-year-old Tabias Cunningham , whom Bush fatally shot after a March 28, 2023, basketball game.

"From one mother to another, I can't even imagine what you're going through," Bush's mother said.

Bush admitted to fatally shooting Cunningham at the Esporta gym on Tanglewood Boulevard off of Hilliard-Rome Road on Columbus' Northwest Side, but said the shooting was in self-defense.

The two men had not met each other prior to March 28, 2023.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before reaching their verdict. The jury found Bush guilty of two counts of murder — one for the purposeful killing of Cunningham and one for killing Cunningham while committing a felonious assault. The jury acquitted Bush on a charge of aggravated murder.

Judge Mark Serrott ordered Bush to serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for at least 23 years.

As Serrott was sentencing Bush, one of his relatives who had been in court throughout the trial attempted to leave. Serrott ordered the man to stay and listen to the remainder of the sentence, saying if the jury had convicted Bush of aggravated murder he may have received a sentence of life without parole.

"He's gone forever over nothing at all," Serrott said. "This was not self-defense at all in my humble opinion."

Bush testified Tuesday and said Cunningham had made verbal threats toward him during the first of several pickup basketball games the men were playing at the gym. The two men had argued after a hard foul in the first game, but they then played in a second game.

Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Steve Schott questioned Bush about the threats and noted to the jury that Bush stayed at the gym, sitting on the sidelines through another pickup game, before approaching Cunningham and pulling out a gun.

"I was stuck," Bush said when asked why he didn't just leave the gym, despite driving himself there. "I felt for sure by then there was people outside the gym."

Schott told the jury Bush had waited more than 30 minutes before the confrontation and had a gun in the waistband of his shorts when he approached the unarmed Cunningham. Bush said he ran after the shooting because he panicked.

"This defendant was so scared for his life that he kept playing basketball. He keeps playing basketball with the man he's so terrified of," Schott told the jury during his closing arguments. "This started with a foul. This defendant was angry, not scared."

Evidence presented during the two-day trial showed Cunningham was struck by gunfire twice in the back. Other bullets struck the floor of the basketball court , and one struck a basketball that was left at the scene by another player who had run when the shots were fired.

The shooting occurred around 8:45 p.m. on March 28, 2023. Columbus police got a call about shots being fired inside the gym facility at the fitness center, and when officers arrived, they found Cunningham bleeding on the gym floor. He was transported by medics, but died a short time later at an area hospital.

Bush fled with other gymgoers who were running away from the shots, according to court records, but was later identified by eyewitnesses. Bush was not a member of the gym and was seen on video walking past the gym's front desk without registering as a guest.

Bush's attorney, Sam Shamansky, said Bush was "scared out of his skull" during the time that passed and argued that Cunningham left Bush no choice but to shoot.

"He's there to shoot baskets, he's not there to kill anybody. Tae'Von didn't start a thing," Shamansky said.

Bush testified he gave the gun to the friend who he had gotten it from after the two met in a parking lot, and then went to Indiana for more than week before coming back to Columbus and turning himself in to police.

During his closing arguments Wednesday, Shamansky lamented the gun violence in Columbus and said the world Bush lived in made even a verbal threat to kill very real.

"There's no more extreme threat than 'I'm going to kill you'," Shamansky said. "Why does (Bush) deserve to die? Because he picked the wrong gym?"

Schott ended his closing argument with the jury by pointing at Bush and urging Shamansky to look to his left, where Bush was sitting, if he wanted to start to address gun violence.

"His client is a part of it," Schott said. "He settled what should have been a fist fight with a gun."

Before his trial began Monday, Bush entered guilty pleas to carrying a concealed weapon and having a weapon while under disability. Bush had pleaded guilty to two counts of breaking and entering in 2022 and was on probation in that case when the shooting occurred.

bbruner@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus man said fatal gym shooting over hoops dispute was self-defense. A jury disagreed