“I told him don’t make me shoot you. That’s the last thing I would want to do in the line of duty,” said the officer who, despite his lungs burning because of the pepper spray, chased Smith along Rooney Avenue, Canal Street and tackled him along Route 54.

Smith said the store employees, a customer and a man along Mill Street were mistaken when they said they saw an African-American man and an African-American woman enter the store.

He said he didn’t have a can of pepper spray in his pocket when apprehended. An identical can was found in the jewelry store, Montour County District Attorney Robert Buehner Jr. said.

“I am not the person who committed that crime,” Smith said. “I actually tasted pepper spray.”

Where were the sunglasses witnesses said Smith was wearing? Rudniski asked the jury.

“No one could ID him except the officer,” the defense attorney said.

Buehner asked why the first thing Smith did while lost in Danville was to go to a jewelry store and asked why Smith’s friend hadn’t gone to look for him.

Earlier, jewelry store employee Linda Cavanaugh testified, “I thought my life was over” during the robbery.

Smith’s girlfriend, Melanie McDuffie, 44, of Sicklerville, was charged with the robbery and related offenses in March. Her preliminary hearing will be scheduled for sometime this summer.

A man across the street from Ryan’s testified he noticed something wasn’t right in the shop and alerted police.

A Ryan’s employee for six years, Cavanaugh said she and fellow worker Margie Hunsinger were getting ready to close the shop that day. Dr. Michelle Olson was at Ryan’s, picking up merchandise. Shop co-owner Kelly Green had left at about 5 p.m.

Cavanaugh testified an African-American man and an African-American woman entered in a “rushed manner and unusual for the normal type of customer.”

They abruptly came to the counter, with one spraying the three women with pepper spray.

“It took your breath away and made you bend over like you were going to vomit,” Cavanaugh said. “I couldn’t breathe. We were all screaming.”

“The man told us to shut up and get down. I was bent over and couldn’t see. It hurt so much I thought it was acid on my face. It was burning like on fire. I thought I was blinded.”