Bond Hearing Set In Murder Of Police Officer

The attorney for a teenager accused of killing a Mobile police officer said there was absolutely no way his client would have known the man he shot was a police officer.
Attorney Jim Sears is representing 18 year old Richard Joseph Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth is charged with capital murder in the shooting death of Officer Brandon Sigler.
The shooting happened late Tuesday night at the Tyler Ridge apartment complex in west Mobile.
Police said Officer Sigler was trying to break up a fight between some girls.
Sears said, "Mr. Hollingsworth is a nice kid from a good family."
Hollingsworth talked to reporters Wednesday while being led from the police station.
He admitted pulling out a pistol and shooting Sigler.
When asked about Hollingsworth's comments to reporters, Sears said, "Like any other attorney that doesn't want to hear their client making those comments, I wish that he had not, at least not until after we had talked and I found out more about it. I don't that think its going to harm him."
Sears also said Hollingsworth "did say that he didn't know it was an officer. The officer did not have on a uniform, didn't have a badge on his belt like they typically do, his t-shirt or whatever it was he had on didn't identify him as a police officer, so there was absolutely no way that he would have known that that was a police officer."
When asked how he saw the role of courtesy police officers in this case, Sears said, "This courtesy police officer, I think, extends the effect of the police department well beyond the scope of what a police department does. The relationship is not with the police department. The individual officer does not have a relationship with the police department. He has a relationship with the apartment complex and that was the way it was in this case."
When asked where Hollingsworth got a stolen gun, Sears said, "Don't have any idea at this point. Don't even know if he brought it to the scene or if just somebody else brought it, and its just something that happened, an opportunity that came up, so I really don't know."
Sears would not talk about whether Hollingsworth had any record as a juvenile or whether he might be on suicide watch in jail.
He did say Hollingsworth, at least initially, would plead not guilty.
Hollingsworth goes before Judge George Hardesty for a bond hearing at 9am Friday.