Heartbreaking photos show bride in her dress witnessing the fight that would end with an off-duty cop shooting her husband dead on their wedding night.
Anthony Bruno, a 26-year-old Kansas City firefighter died last December 1 after getting into a fight with a cab driver, outside the hotel where he planned to spend his wedding night. Now his wife Stephanie Bruno, 29, and parents are suring the off-duty cop that killed Bruno and the hotel for wrongful death.
The Brunos were married on November 30 in a ceremony at the Town Pavillion. The couple later joined a smaller group of family and friends at Anthony's restaurant before getting a cab to the Marriott Muehlebach where they planned to spend the night.
However, the couple got into a fight with the cab driver over a $6 fare which turned violent when the cab driver, Ahmed Alomari, hurled a sexual slur at the new Mrs Bruno.
Stephanie Bruno told investigaotrs that her husband started punching Alomari after the insult, and the resulting fight was caught on hotel surveillance camera. Police officer Donald Hubbard, 42, who was working as a security officer while off duty at the Marriott, was called to intervene.
Another video shows the Hubbard trying to tame an intoxicated Bruno, who continues to beat back at the officer. Events quickly spiral out of control when the officer appears to knee Bruno in the head as he tries to cuff him.
This causes Bruno to become enraged and he actively appears to want to overcome the officer, rather than resist arrest. Hubbard is seen looking at the two by-standers and mentioning the word 'help' before Bruno climbs on top of him, begins to gouge his eye and mouth and then start to pummel his dead.
'Hey, don't fight the cop, don't fight the cop!' one of the onlookers shouts, right before the camera's view slips away and two gunshots ring out.
Bruno was struck both times and pronounced dead at a local hospital.
A grand jury decided not to bring up criminal charges against Hubbard.
But Brunos family filed a wrongsful death lawsuit this week, against Hubbard, Marriott International and the Kansas City Downtown Hotel Group LLC. In the suit, the family argues that Hubbard shouldn't have pursued Bruno since he was not working as a police officer at the time and did not witness the original fight. It also says he wasn't carrying pieces of police gear such as a radio, stun gun, or pepper spray which could have been used to subdue Bruno.
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