Brown found guilty of attempted murder

Mar. 8—GOSHEN — Dentrell Brown was found guilty of Attempted Murder, a Level 1 Felony, for a shooting he claimed was self-defense at the Eagles lodge in Elkhart.

As his five-day long jury trial in Elkhart County Circuit Court ended Friday, Brown, 28, told the jury his side of the story.

Brown was found guilty of attempted murder for a shooting at Elkhart Eagles Club 395, 225 W. Marion St., Elkhart April 17, 2022. He was also found guilty of Criminal Recklessness, a Level 6 Felony; but not Aggravated Battery, a Level 3 Felony. Police said in the charging affidavit that a fight broke out and the entertainment director attempted to remove the man from the situation, but Brown instead ran out the exit door, returning moments later with a gun. He discharged it several times and then left.

The affidavit said a witness told police said she'd left the building after a large fight broke out in the event hall. Saadallah Altameemi and Lamondre Townsend were shot several times. Both men required extensive surgeries and physical therapy as a result of the shooting.

Brown told the jury he'd gone to a gender reveal party/birthday party for his cousin around 5 p.m., that evening and left around 11:30 p.m., heading to a bar with many of the younger generation for a bit before heading over to the Eagles. He'd ridden to the bar with his cousin, but left with Allen. Allen had called to see if he wanted to go to the Eagles with him. They arrived around 1 to 1:15 a.m., Brown said.

Brown said they hung around in the parking lot, and then came in the front door and security patted them down, gave them a wristband and they went upstairs to the dance floor, met up with the host, Brown went to get a drink from the bar.

"I go to turn around and Lamondre Townsend is literally in my grill, like touching faces," he said, adding that he didn't know him at the time. "I could tell he was drunk, I smelled it."

Brown claimed Townsend confronted him to talk "about some adult stuff," and he asked someone nearby if he knew him and the man said he didn't, and that he was drunk, so he told Townsend to go away.

As they were speaking, Brown said Altameemi and security guard for the club Derrick Vinson appeared alongside Townsend. He knew Vinson as the security guard at the club but didn't actually know any of the three men.

"After this situation happened I found out who everyone who was involved was," Brown explained.

They encircled him, and he backed up. Brown claimed that Altameemi reached over Townsend and punched him, and he went to the ground, dislocating both shoulders, and the men started kicking him.

"I can only try to protect myself so much," Brown recounted. Brown said he tore his right rotator cuff in a sports injury in 2009 and so he suffers chronic dislocation of the shoulder and generally pops it back in himself.

His cousin came over and started engaged the men and they backed away from Brown. Two staff members came and picked him up, and he picked up a gun he found on the ground.

"They asked me 'What's going on," Brown said. "I'm in the process of trying to explain to them and someone throws a chair directly at me."

He backed up several steps and into a bathroom and popped his chronically-injured shoulder back into place but left the other, telling the jury he would have needed help to do that one.

"When I came back out, everybody that was involved in the fight, everyone that wasn't involved in the fight, was trying to get out the front door," Brown said.

He said he also attempted to leave when Townsend presumably preparing to attack again.

"I did find a gun from the people and I didn't want to chance it," Brown said, so he fired on him and Townsend fell onto the pool table.

Altameemi then charged at him and because Altameemi appeared to have his hand in his waistband reaching for a gun as well, Brown also fired on him.

"He basically just lunged off the bar and ran towards me," Brown said. "I would have shot Saadallah in the legs if I could think in the moment but there was no time to think, only time to react. As soon as I see Saadallah running towards me I just raised my hand and shot."

Brown said he didn't actually believe Altameemi had been shot despite him firing an estimated three times. When he took off running, Brown followed, stating that he was also trying to leave the building. He said he wasn't chasing him.

"I was trying to get out of there alive," Brown said.

Brown said he did fire a shot at the ground as they left the building to spook Altameemi. He was mere feet away.

"I still believe that he had a gun to this day," Brown said.

Elkhart County Prosecutors Office Criminal Intelligence Analyst Jeremy Stout claimed Thursday that the surveillance footage indicated that as people were rushing to exit the club, a possible shooter appeared to exit the building too and raised his arms to shoot a single shot toward Altameemi running from the building and stumbling, then the possible shooter running north, whereas most the people were running south toward the cars in the parking lot.

When they got out, Brown ran one way, and Altameemi ran the other way. Brown confirmed that the man Stout claimed was him in the video, was, in fact, him, but he didn't fire once outside.

"I had to get out of there, that's all I was thinking, I need to leave," Brown said, stating he didn't know why he headed toward Marion Street, just to get away from the situation.

Elkhart City Police Corporal Tyler Cruse arrived at the scene within three minutes of call. Brown appeared to have turned around to head in the same direction as other people running from the scene when Cruze arrived. Brown said the reason he turned around was because that's where Allen's car was, and he and Allen drove away.

"I entered the club one time, and left one time," Brown asserted, stating he never left to go back to the car for any reason until they left.

After the shooting, Brown went Chicago for a while, and then went to Mississippi.

"I didn't want to go to jail for defending myself," he said. "I didn't feel like I could go to the police and say this is what happened. I had just got jumped by 10 to 15 people, Who was going to tell the truth?"

"When you feel fear, you're not going to be able to determine when you're safe until you're completely out of the situation," Brown said, adding that he did tell Altameemi as they were running down the stairs away from the scene of the shooting that he could have killed him.

Altameemi testified Tuesday that he'd went to the club with a group of friends, and that he'd broken up one of the fights at the club, one that Brown was in, though he didn't know him or anyone else involved at the time.

During cross-examination, Defense Attorney Andrew Baldwin gave him a transcript of the police interview of Altameemi days after the shooting, claiming that he had fought Brown. Altameemi said he didn't remember fighting him, but he acknowledged based on the transcript, that he did say that.

Altameemi went on to explain that after several of the people involved in the fight left, he saw one of the security guards being shot, and began to run away.

Townsend, however, told the jury Tuesday that he didn't know a fight had occurred at all, but he knew there was commotion. He was quite drunk and said he remembered waking up in the hospital. Both men required surgeries.

Brown's friend Allen said he did go to the homicide unit to talk about the shooting, but that he hadn't actually seen the shooting occur. He said he and Brown weren't involved in any fight at the club as far as he was aware and left as security was escorting people out.

"He never went back in there," Allen said during the trial, claiming that when he heard the gunshots, Brown was next to him.

Prosecuting Attorney Kathleen Claeys spent much of Allen's time in court attempting to confirm information Allen had allegedly provided to investigators early on. Allen told defense counsel that he was under the influence of ecstasy, PCP, and alcohol during the incident and that it might account for his lapse in memory.

Altameemi and Townsend have filed lawsuits against the Eagles Lodge for the fight and what they deem as inadequate protection of the club's patrons. In the suits, the two men claim that Brown (listed as unidentified in the lawsuit) picked a fight with other patrons, left and returned to the club with a firearm, and began shooting.

The lawsuits' complaints predominantly surround the fact that the club did not allow weapons, which disallowed them from protecting themselves inside the establishment, and as a result, he was shot multiple times.

"If the place or character of the business is such that the business owner/operator should reasonably anticipate careless, wrongful, or criminal conduct on the part of the third persons, either generally or at some particular time, the business owner/operator is under a duty to take precautions against it and to provide reasonably sufficient protection," Altameemi's lawsuit alleges, citing damages including series personal injury, pain, suffering, mental anguish, and inconvenience, both past and future; loss of income and earning capacity in the future, permanent physical impairment, medical expenses, and loss of enjoyment of life.

The Trustees of Elkhart Aerie 395 Fraternal Order Of Eagles denied all of the accusations by way of response in the Townsend case, which was filed in August, and confirmed Townsend's request for a jury trial. In Altameemi's case, which was filed in early February, and the club issued a response March 5 in Elkhart County Superior Court 2, similarly denying his accusations.

Brown's sentencing is scheduled for April 4.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at

574-538-2065.