Defendant describes Snohomish bar fight

EVERETT — Tony Cullum broke down on the witness stand in his manslaughter trial yesterday, but not over the death of Gary McAdam, who was killed after the two fought outside a Snohomish tavern.

Cullum cried as he described how McAdam treated Cullum's fiancée just before the fight. He said McAdam's behavior was disrespectful, abusive and frightening to her. He claimed he fought McAdam, an off-duty Bothell firefighter, in part to defend Ali Love's honor after McAdam called her an obscene name inside the U&I Tavern.

"It all could have not happened if he had shown my fiancée the respect she deserved," Cullum, 29, said in the final day of testimony in the weeklong Snohomish County Superior Court trial.

He said he and Love, then a U&I bartender, were talking to some people at the bar when McAdam, 40, came up and asked her for help with the pool table. Love told him she was off duty but that the working bartender could assist him, according to witnesses.

Cullum, who is charged with first-degree manslaughter, said he was sitting a few barstools away from Love when he heard her speaking in what he described as "a scared tone."

His Seattle attorney, Tony Savage, asked him what he saw when he turned to look. Cullum paused, took several deep breaths and broke down. "McAdam's engaged her in combat," he said tearfully.

Cullum said he tried to intervene, but others at the bar had already come between McAdam and Love. "There's quite a few people that protect Ali," he said.

Then, he said, he tried to find out why McAdam would "assault" his fiancée.

But under questioning by Deputy Prosecutor Mark Roe, Cullum acknowledged that what he saw was Love hitting McAdam. Roe pressed him about his testimony that McAdam attacked her.

"I can't tell what led up to Ali defending herself like that," he responded.

According to charging papers, McAdam was told to leave and did so. He was outside the bar, about 90 feet away, when he said something like "Bring it on," and Cullum ran after him and punched him "at least a couple of times," sending him to the ground, charging papers say. As he was trying to get up, Cullum hit him in the face, knocking him unconscious, prosecutors say. He was airlifted to Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, where he died from head injuries Feb. 27, one day after the fight.

Cullum testified that it was a "fair fight" and that McAdam took a swing at him and missed just as Cullum threw his first punch. He said he was "trying to survive" when he punched McAdam because he didn't know if the man would come after him or Love.

When Roe asked him about a security videotape taken inside the U&I that appears to show Cullum running through a group of people and out of the bar, Cullum said he didn't believe it was "true and accurate" because it was in police possession for a long time and because his is "a political case."

The state Liquor Control Board revoked U&I's liquor license in the wake of the fight — a decision the bar owner is appealing. Cullum's case is expected to go to the jury today.

Janet Burkitt: 206-423-3295 or jburkitt@seattletimes.com.