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A self-described former Black Guerrilla Family commander returned to Baltimore from federal witness protection to testify against the man he said shot him last May.

Ronnie Johnson, 34, said he turned cooperator in April 2016 after deciding he wanted to change his life, fearing he was going to be killed or locked up.

The next month, he said, he came face to face with a masked man holding a gun who fired seven shots into his leg, breaking his femur.

“I seen the fire come out the gun,” Johnson testified. “He was trying to gun me down.”

But his testimony against alleged shooter Cedric Catchings was not enough. A jury acquitted Catchings of all charges — including attempted first-degree murder — on Monday.

Johnson’s testimony came with a state immunity agreement, allowing him to speak freely about crimes he committed in the past. Johnson admitted he was involved in “several” kidnappings — including one in which the victim who was held for $250,000 ransom would later be fatally shot — and “multiple” robberies.

Catchings’ defense attorney, Stephen Patrick Beatty, said after the trial that the state’s case was flawed beyond the admitted criminal activities of its star witness. He noted that 10 days after the shooting, someone else was arrested with the gun used in the shooting. And he said his client was also shot in the incident, and was tested for gunshot residue on his hands that came back negative.

“The only witness against my client was a man whose past actions read like a Quentin Tarantino script,” Beatty said. “Shootings, kidnappings and giving orders to kill. And the feds as well as the state of Maryland gave him immunity, a free pass on all of it, just to try and convict a young man in a case where the only physical evidence pointed to my client’s innocence.”

Johnson’s current whereabouts are unknown. Assistant State’s Attorney Justin Dickman said he moved out of the city under federal relocation, and has “limited contact with anyone in the city.”

jfenton@baltsun.com

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