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Surveillance footage from 2014 Albion shooting

WORCESTER - Howard F. Penn told a jury Thursday that he feared for his own safety when he fatally shot Lloyd Worster, a co-worker at the Albion rooming house at 765 Main St., two years ago.

On trial in Worcester Superior Court on first-degree murder and firearm charges in the Jan. 10, 2014, slaying, the 56-year-old Mr. Penn took the witness stand in his own defense Thursday afternoon.

Mr. Worster, 52, died after being shot once in the back in the security office at the Albion, where he worked as a handyman and Mr. Penn was employed as a security guard.

The fatal shooting and an altercation between the two men that preceded it were captured on a surveillance video that was played for the jury earlier in the trial. Mr. Penn called 911 after the shooting and said he had just shot a man who had attacked him.

"I'm pleading self-defense," he told police in a recorded interview that followed.

Under questioning Thursday by his lawyer, James B. Krasnoo, Mr. Penn, who is black, said he and Mr. Worster had been feuding for months leading up to the fatal shooting. He said Mr. Worster, who was white, had directed racial slurs at him and threatened to kill him during earlier arguments.