Witness uses process of elimination to identify Windsor bowling alley shooter

A man has pled not guilty to five counts of attempted murder at a Windsor bowling alley on Monday. CTV Windsor’s Michelle Maluske has more.

Fernando Ratcliffe, 26, pleaded not guilty on Monday to five counts of attempted murder, discharging a firearm and being in a vehicle with a loaded weapon in connection with a 2022 shooting.

It’s in relation to the April 9, 2022, drive-by shooting outside an east Windsor bowling alley. Five people were shot but they all survived.

At the start of Ratcliffe’s trial on Monday, Assistant Crown Attorney Bryan Pillon excused more than a dozen potential witnesses, telling Justice Bruce Thomas he only expects to call three witnesses: Three of the four people in the pickup truck.

The truck belongs to Joshua Fryer, now 23, who was driving the vehicle that night.

Incident starts with a fight

He told Justice Bruce Thomas Monday, someone “jumped” him inside the bowling alley for some unknown reason. He suffered a “large cut” on his forehead.

Fryer says he left the bowling alley and went to his truck.

Surveillance video shown to the judge on Monday, shows the fight and a manager subsequently asks everyone to leave.

In the footage from the front of the business, Fryer is shown driving his vehicle towards the front door, where a large group is gathering. Fryer lets his then girlfriend into the truck, his half-brother and Ratcliffe.

As Fryer starts to drive away, the driver’s side window rolls down, and surveillance video captured the flash of seven gunshots being fired.

“The gun was fired from the backseat through the front driver’s side window. I could see the gun beside my head,” Fryer testified.

“There were gun shells flying in the air. My ears were ringing.”

He told the judge his girlfriend was in the front seat, his half brother in the rear passenger side. Ratcliffe was directly behind him in the rear.

“I did not see who was holding the gun,” Fryer conceded.

He testified, however, that he could tell his girlfriend wasn’t armed beside him, and he could clearly see his unarmed half brother in the rearview mirror. The only person he couldn’t see was Ratcliffe.

‘Illogical’ explanation

Defence lawyer Devin Bains argues Fryer’s account of what happened was “illogical” in many ways, most notably, that the gun was fired from the backseat, through the driver’s side window.

“The shooting was amazingly accurate,” Bains argued, noting his client only had two seconds to get into the truck, sit down, close the door and open fire.

“That’s startlingly fast movement,” Bains put to Fryer, who agreed but still maintained that’s exactly how the shooting happened.

Bains also noted Fryer’s version required “pretty good target ratio” for the shooter to strike three of the five victims were involved in the fight inside the bowling alley. The other two were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He also opined on how Fryer drove out of the parking lot in a straight line saying it was “indicative” of “how clearly and coldly you were thinking in that moment.”

Fryer denied – repeatedly – that he did not know any of the people who attacked him inside the bowling alley, nor did he realize it was the same people who were shot at out front.

He did admit to cleaning his truck, removing the spent shell casings and burning the clothes he was wearing that night in the days after the shooting.

“I was scared and confused,” Fryer told the judge.

The trial continues Tuesday and is expected to last all week.