photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Conoco gas station at 23rd and Louisiana, pictured Aug. 19, 2026, was the site of an alleged aggravated assault that is the subject matter of a Douglas County trial.

A defendant took the stand on Thursday and told a jury that surveillance videos showing him pulling and racking a gun in response to another man were all “edited” and meant to deceive the jury about what had really happened at a Lawrence gas station last fall.

“You just cut and pasted videos here,” the 50-year-old defendant, Jason Keesee, told Assistant Douglas County District Attorney Cody Smith, who is prosecuting Keesee for two counts of aggravated assault based on an incident from Nov. 10, 2025, when Keesee pulled his gun at individuals at the Conoco at 23rd and Louisiana streets.

“You’re just not showing the video” that would validate Keesee’s own version of events, Keesee insisted to Smith.

A witness who was working at the gas station testified on Wednesday that the station’s surveillance videos were true and accurate representations of what had occurred. The worker provided the video footage to police and had told them that Keesee was in the store just prior to the incident outside and seemed “pissed” — which Keesee testified was not anger at anyone but frustration that the price of his rolling tobacco, which he was buying, had doubled.

Keesee disputed the testimony of his alleged victims, William Renfro and Tasha Ashford, who told the jury on Wednesday that the incident stemmed from Renfro apparently not showing Keesee, a stranger, proper respect by failing to return a head nod as the two men crossed paths just outside the gas station’s entrance.

Renfro testified that he was taken aback when Keesee made a big deal about the perceived slight. He said that he was frustrated and angry that the incident had escalated to Keesee telling him he had guns and then moments later pulling a handgun from his jacket, racking it and threatening him. He said he thought Keesee might kill him, and he retreated in fear when he saw Keesee angrily brandish the weapon.

Keesee told the jury a different version of events Thursday — namely, that Renfro had been the aggressor, “chasing” and “attacking” him multiple times and appearing to want to kill him. He pulled his gun only in self-defense, he said.

On cross-examination, he seemed to modify his descriptions of “chasing” and “attacking” to “coming at me” and “assaulting” him under the legal definition of assault, which does not require physical contact. As he attempted to explain his “understanding of jurisprudence” and how he believed Renfro satisfied assault degrees “1, 2 and 3,” Smith objected and Judge Stacey Donovan cut Keesee off, sustaining the objection. She also brusquely reminded Keesee to stick to answering the factual questions he was asked.

Keesee claimed several times that Renfro had been “running” at him, though the videos shown in court never showed Renfro advancing faster than a walk. Under cross-examination, he said he did not mean “running running.”

He noted that the videos did show Ashford, Renfro’s fiancée, and the store worker tugging at Renfro to stay back and said that Renfro ignoring their pleas constituted him “ripping free” and “coming for me.”

On Wednesday, Ashford testified that she was pulling at Renfro to keep him from getting hurt and because they had their 3-year-old daughter waiting in the car. The store worker said he grabbed Renfro’s arm because he was trying to restore calm and because Renfro was nearer to him than Keesee was.

Keesee said he could only speculate as to why Renfro was angry.

“I literally just said hi, and it pissed him off,” Keesee said of their initial encounter. He wondered if maybe he had nodded his head upward, which he said was a sign of a homosexual come-on, instead of what he called the “bro” way of nodding downward.

“He was incredibly irate,” Keesee testified. He said he became “terrified” he was going to be killed, though Renfro, who he thought might be under the influence, had no weapon. Keesee said he had heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis and couldn’t have fought off a child, let alone a grown man. That’s why he carried a gun when out walking, he said.

“A civilized society is an armed society,” he told the jury.

Keesee said that although he racked the gun after pulling it, he never put his finger on the trigger and pointed the gun at “an air conditioner thing,” not people, as Renfro had testified.

After the incident, Keesee walked to a grocery door down the street, where he was arrested. A police officer testified Wednesday that he found a gun on Keesee but that it was a different gun than the one he had pulled at the gas station.

The defense’s only other witness Thursday was a woman who was at the gas station that day. On the stand, she referred to Keesee familiarly as “Jason,” though she said she didn’t know him. She said that Renfro was “kind of confrontational” when Keesee nodded at him and that he “came at Jason,” who was pleading to be left alone before pulling his gun.

“I would have classified that as self-defense,” the woman, Olivia Smith, said, adding later, “If I were Jason, I would have shot the guy.”

On cross-examination, though, it was apparent that she had made a different statement to police on the day of the incident.

In police body-camera footage played for the jury by the prosecution, she does not tell police that Renfro was the aggressor, but describes Keesee by saying “Guy pulled out a gun at him,” and she said Keesee said, “You want to talk crazy to me? I have a gun.”

“I said, ‘Dude, you might want to get out of here,'” she is seen telling police, an apparent reference to Renfro.

Referring to Keesee, she told police, “that guy was kind of crazy, you know what I mean?”

The prosecutor asked her if she had ever mentioned self-defense to the police, and she said no. She admitted that the first time she had mentioned self-defense was as she was sitting on the stand Thursday.

Like Keesee, the woman insisted that the video evidence was “not accurate.”

Jurors were set to hear closing arguments Thursday afternoon and then to begin deliberating.