Eyewitness To A Shooting

A key witness in the murder trial of Dashawn Revels took the stand for the second day in , this time to testify before the jury. The witness had in the presence of Judge Stuart M. Schimelman, who after hearing what she and the police had to say about the way the shooting suspect in this case had been identified, denied the defense motion to suppress the evidence.

The witness, whose name is being withheld because she is under state witness protection, came forward shortly after police arrived at the scene of a shooting that occurred on March 31, 2009 at the intersection of State Pier Road and Crystal Avenue. The victim, Bryan Davila, 20, who made the initial 911 call reporting that he’d been shot at 11:07 p.m., was pronounced dead at at 11:40 p.m.

The witness, who testified in Spanish through a court interpreter, told the jury she’d been waiting for a soap opera she watched at 11 p.m. to start when she heard the sound of yelling coming from outside. When she looked out the living room window of her fifth floor apartment at 40 Crystal Avenue, she said, she saw eight or nine men arguing in the courtyard in the middle of the Thames River Apartments complex.

She moved to her kitchen window to get a better look and noticed two men in particular, one wearing dark pants and a dark hoodie and the other wearing dark pants, dark sneakers, a light and dark green camouflage jacket, and a red ball cap, confronting another man. All had their backs to her but at the sound of the gunshots, she said, she saw the victim turn toward the shooter briefly before he tried to run away.

The witness said she saw a flash come from the outstretched left hand of the man in the camouflage-- who was closest to the victim--and heard at least six shots. Davila took “not even two steps,” the witness said, before he collapsed, at which point the two men ran off along State Pier Road in the same direction the rest of the group had headed. The witness said she noticed that the man in the camouflage jacket dropped something that he stopped to pick up before he jumped over a fence to catch up with the rest of the group.

When police arrived the witness, using her sister as a translator, told police what she had seen. Her description of the shooter was relayed over the radio and within half an hour, police testified, they had apprehended a man fitting that description. Officer Justin Clachrie told the jury that he brought both women in his patrol car to Home Street, where two suspects had been taken into custody, one man wearing dark clothes and the other in a camouflage jacket and red ball cap.

“I explained the person you are going to see may or may not be the person you have seen,” Clachrie said. When police shone a spotlight on the man with the camouflage he said the witness—who he described as being quiet and a little nervous up until that point—became excited and exclaimed that was the man before Clachrie even had the chance to ask her.

Clachrie said she was more hesitant about identifying the second suspect, who was wearing dark clothes, although she said he might have been involved. After establishing that the other man had an alibi placing him away from the crime scene, the second suspect was released, police said yesterday.

Asked if she saw the man she’d identified as the shooter in the courtroom, the witness pointed to the defendant, Dashawn Revels. On cross examination, defense attorney Bruce Sturman reminded the witness that, just yesterday, she had pointed not to Revels but to Don Griffith, Sturman’s college intern, who, like the defendant, is African American, had short hair, a short goatee, and was wearing black pants and a white shirt. Despite freely admitting that she was nervous, the witness remained unruffled by Sturman’s questions.

“Truth is, it’s been a long time and right now, out of the blue, they want me to recognize someone I saw for just a few seconds,” she said in response to a later question from Senior State Attorney David Smith. When Smith asked her if she was nervous and actually trying to avoid looking at the defendant, she said she was. However, she pointed out that she recognized her error yesterday and had corrected it. When she looked closely at the defendant, she said, she knew he was the man she had seen because his skin was lighter, more like hers.

Sturman also asked if the witness had noticed anything unusual about the shooter’s arm, which had been in a cast at the time. She said she had not but, prompted by further questions from Smith, noted that the sleeves of the camouflage jacket were covering both arms to the wrist when she first saw the man.

Testimony in the case continues tomorrow, when crime scene investigators are expected to take the stand.