photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Starr Wayne Hart during a jury trial on May 16, 2023, in Douglas County District Court. Hart was acquitted on one count of aggravated assault for pulling a gun on a man in the parking lot of a Baldwin City medical clinic.

An Overbrook woman who was accused of assaulting a man by pulling a gun on him in a parking lot in Baldwin City was acquitted by jurors on Tuesday in Douglas County District Court.

The jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning a not guilty verdict for Starr Wayne Hart, 46, who had been charged with one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Hart’s charge stemmed from an incident on June 7, 2022, in the parking lot of LMH Health’s Family Medicine clinic in Baldwin City, 406 Ames St. Police initially described it as a road rage incident.

Hart testified on Monday that she was driving east on U.S. Highway 56 toward Baldwin City with her 9-year-old daughter when a man started following her aggressively about 10 miles west of town. She said at one point he drove up next to her and she saw him making obscene gestures at her with both hands. She said the man did not pass her, but would slow down a bit and then race back up behind her.

Hart said she was afraid for her safety and the safety of her daughter, and as soon as she arrived in Baldwin City she pulled into the parking lot. She said the man followed her and blocked her in, and that he then got out of his vehicle and started yelling at her.

The car Hart was driving was her husband’s car, Hart said, and she looked for something to protect herself with and found her husband’s handgun in the center console.

“I yelled, ‘Leave us alone; please stop following us,'” she testified.

Hart testified that she got out of her car to confront the man and had the gun pointed in his direction but angled toward the ground. But she said the man didn’t leave.

Instead, “he took a step back and gave me an awful grin,” she said. “He was playing with me.”

Hart said the man finally left after a few other people arrived in the parking lot — but that right before he jumped into his car and drove away, he shouted, “She’s got a gun!” After that, Hart said she threw the gun back into the car, unbuckled her daughter from the car seat and rushed into the health clinic, where she called police.

When police arrived, Hart said she was questioned by a Baldwin City police officer and she sat in the back of a patrol car for a long time with her daughter on her lap. She said she was taken off guard when the officer returned to the patrol car and arrested her with help from Douglas County sheriff’s deputies.

Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal represented the state at trial. He played for the jury a body camera video from the Baldwin City officer, Mike Underwood, where Hart can be seen panicking and screaming.

“This is bull! How can you let him get away with this? You can’t do this,” Hart said in the video as she was being put in handcuffs.

In the courtroom while the video was played, Hart turned away from the screen and began sobbing. She later testified that watching the video was traumatizing.

“It was the worst moment in my life. I had never had an adult breakdown. All these people were touching me and wouldn’t tell me why,” Hart said.

The man who was following Hart, Scott Schwarz, also testified at the trial. In closing arguments, Leal summarized Schwarz’s testimony. Leal said Schwarz testified that he followed Hart because she had passed him in a no-passing zone and he wanted to get her license plate number. Hart’s attorney, Russell Powell, said during his closing argument that Schwarz freely admitted to following Hart for miles before confronting her in the parking lot.

The question for the jury, Leal said, was whether Schwarz posed a threat or whether Hart had overreacted by pulling out a firearm. Powell argued that it was clear from the police video and from Hart’s testimony that she was traumatized and that she feared for her own safety and that of her child.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Starr Wayne Hart, left, and her defense attorney, Russell Powell, of Leawood, Kansas, during a jury trial on May 16, 2023, in Douglas County District Court. Hart was acquitted on one count of aggravated assault for pulling a gun on a man in the parking lot of a Baldwin City medical clinic.