A Butler man recounted the events leading up to his 2017 arrest for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon during the first day of his trial.

Peter D. Gall, now 32, testified Wednesday that he went to meet a friend at Clearview Mall following a murdered friend's funeral on June 20, 2017. He told jurors the mall was a place where he and friends regularly gathered during high school days.

Gall explained that his already upsetting day worsened when two mall security guards approached him and his friend, John Pillar, now 31, around midnight. He said he was on the phone with another bereaved friend when Christina Cox, a mall security guard, told him and Pillar to leave the mall parking lot.

“I couldn't really hear what was going on,” Gall said. “I was trying to hear the phone conversation in one ear and then in the other I hear the woman yelling at me.”

An argument ensued between the two men and Cox.

“(Gall) said we're not real cops and that we can't make them leave,” Cox testified.

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