When the gunfire rang out on that sunny afternoon in August, it stunned the children playing, the neighbors doing yard work and the woman sitting on her stoop, Eugena Callahan.

Callahan recalled the horror Wednesday as she testified in Harford County Circuit Court in the trial of Sean Nelson Smith, charged with killing the 25-year-old son of a longtime community activist in Edgewood.

She told of a phone call from Smith the day after the Aug. 11 shooting, in which he apparently pleaded with her not to report him to the police.

“He said, ‘Don’t do it,’ and I said, ‘I hadn’t done it yet,’ ” Callahan said. “I told him I was angry because it was daytime when it happened, and he said, ‘It was either me or him.’ That was pretty much the whole conversation.”

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Smith, 26, is charged with the fatal shooting of Samuel Horne on the 1800 block of Brookside Drive.

Horne’s mother, anti-violence activist Mildred Samy, took the stand briefly to identify a black-and-white morgue photo of Horne, her sixth child.

Nicholas Porter, who said he had grown up in Yonkers, N.Y., with Smith and two other men who were there that afternoon, testified that he and his friends had stepped out of a Brookside Drive town house to smoke some marijuana when they were confronted by Horne.

“He said, ‘You n-----s think this is a game?’ and walked out into the parking lot with his hand behind his back,” Porter said.

Horne, Porter said, had allegedly made threats the night before against Smith and had a violent reputation.

Prosecutors said Horne had no weapon on him during the confrontation. But John Janowich, an assistant public defender, said the shooting was an act of self-defense because of Horne’s reputation and his alleged threats.

A few blocks east of the shooting site, former Baltimore City paramedic Elmer Conley said he was resting after yard work when he recognized the sound of gunshots coming from Brookside, then followed an ambulance to provide first aid.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com