April 29, 2004

Update

Reed is showing his position on the usual diagrams. He was thirty yards away when the shots were fired.

Looking at the passenger side of the police car. Two officers were at the front of the police car, then went towards driver's side of Perez' car. When they got out of their police car, Macomber and Sery both had their weapons drawn, he says. He could not hear commands or responses between officers and Perez.

They proceeded to driver's side, there was some kind of yelling Reed couldn't hear. He saw a weapon straight out, then saw a crouch, and then heard the three shots. He originally thought Macomber had fired one and Sery fired two. He could not tell if Perez' car door was open or closed.

He was viewing this over the top of Perez' car. The officers were in view until the crouch. After the shots, he said to watch out for stray bullets. Shortly after, the other poice started arriving.

The man he was with at the scene, he says, has reported wrongly that they were over by the store door, fifteen feet away from the scene, which Reed counters. But he doesn't know if he might have walked over to the store afterward.

Reed could not see into the vehicle, but could see a shadow movign in the vehicle after the shots were fired, for a moment. But he's not sure about that. Windows were tinted so he didn't have a real view at all.

He stayed there for five, ten, fifteen minutes. Another officer arrive dand stepped into the scene with a shotgun then pulled back. Then Reed left and went home as other police arrived.

He and his friend returnd to Reed's house and talked about it and were not sure whether or nto to get involved.

Reed ultimately gave a statement to police officers. Schrunk is asking if there's anything different or his recolelction has changed. No, he says it's quite clear to him and nothing's changed.

Question: Can you go back now to time between officers getting out of car... how much time between getting out and hearing the shots.

Reed guesses about thirty seconds.

Reed confirms he couldn't make out the talking between officers and Perez, but it was occuring.

Update

Next up is Reed's friend, Richard Brooks. Brooks says he was at the edge of George Park, facing the store, with Reed. They noticed police pulling in behind Perez' car.

The camera is not showing Brooks' face, just his hands.

Brooks is showing where he was on the usual diagrams, but we can't see it because the camera clearly is not supposed to be showing his face. All we can see are his legs.

Brooks says he was with Reed the entire time except right after the shooting when he walked over to the store to see if he could get a better look.

Brooks says he saw police car pull into the parking lot. Officers has gottenout and pulled out their guns, he says, and walked up towards the car. He couldn't hear what the yelling was, and shortly after that the gunfire. A minute or so after that, Brooks walked over to the store and stood there for a couple seconds until the next police car pulled up and they were told to move. He went back over to Reed.

Brooks says he did not see the officers actually step out of their car, but they had just done so when he looked over, and were walking to Perez' car. One officer walked towards the car, and the other came around. Officer closest to the car stepped back after some yelling, and then shots fired.

Brooks says what he could hear was yelling for Perez to show his hands, put his hands up. He could hear response from the person inthe car, but couldn't make it out It might have been something about "What did I do?" but he only thinks that after hearing other reports. He did hear him yell something back but wasn't sure what it was.

About the same time the cloest officer steped back, Brooks heard the shots. He could not see what the closest officer was doing before stepping back.

Brooks was looking across the top of Perez' car, at ana gle over the front end of the car, so he coudn't see Macomber's body, but could see most of Sery's upper body.

The gunshots he heard were one, and then two more real fast. Somebody yelled something else, and Brooks walked across the road to see if he could get a better view. He saw Perez in the car, twitching or flipping around. Then another police car arrived with a skidding stop. Officer came out towards Perez' car, and about the same time another officer hollered at Brooks to get back in the store or go back across the street. He went back across the street.

Next, Brooks and Reed stood there for another 25-30 minutes and then went to Reed's house.

Before leaving, Brooks says he was there long enough to see another 6-7 police cars arrive, and they surrounded the car, most on the driver's side with the other officers already present. Then an ambulance pulled in and the driver got out and went to the car, then stopped, talking to one of the officers, then got back in the ambulance and left, he says.

Brooks went back to the scene later on and tried to talk to the police. Stood there for an hour or so, thought he talked to a police officer but it turned out to be somebody else, because the police didn't remmeber talking to him when he talked with them later on. He talked to some reported a couple of days later.

Brooks told The Oregonian that he walked to the store after the shooting, although the paper reported he was by the store during the shooting. Brooks says that what the paper reported is not what he had told them.

Schrunk explains this is one of the reason why Brooks is testifying, to get these facts straight.

Brooks says he gave one interview to The Oregonian, and talked to a couple detectives after he talked to the paper. He also talked to Reed about what they had seen.

Brooks says nothing he remembers now is different than what he rememebred then. Some of it is "a little more fuzzy" and some is "a little more clear" but he doesn't remember anything else. He did not know anyone involved, and has had not contact with the officers and did not recognize them.

Brooks re-testifies that he could see one officer form the passeger side and oen from the driver's side. He says he did not notice whether the driver's weapon was a gun or a Taser. "I seen what resembled guns in both officers' hands, yes." He said one might have been a Taser now that he's heard what others have said. From he saw, he took it as guns in the hands of both officers.

Update

Next to the stand is Kim Anita Sundquist. Schrunk asks if she is nervous, she says she is okay.

That day, she was westbound on Fesseden, going to a friend of a friend's house to drop off five dollars. She had a passenger in the car. They were near the scene. She saw a police car first, then the two officer standing there. One of whom had something in his hand that appeared to her to be a chain that was hooked to Perez' car.

She says the officer had ahold of something she couldn't see but appeared to be a pistol, she thought thery both had guns, but she could see a chain, and saw a motion that was going that caught her attention. It looked like he was pulling on it. It looked to her like it was an empty car, she didn't see anyone in the car.

She stopped in the middle of the road, she says. Schrunk chuckles. She got out. "You parked I hope." "No, I just got out."

She could hear a sound like a chain being pulled across metal. All of sudden she heard pop pop pop. Her passenger asked about the first sound and if it were gunfire, she was about to say no, and then the gunshots.

At the time she says she didn't read any newspaper articles or talk to anyone because she didn't want anything to influence what she saw. She also says that right before the shots, she noticed that Macomber backed up, and then Sery backed up, crouched, and fired. That's when she stopped and got out of the car.

Sundquist goes through the usual routine at the diagrams of the scene.

She stayed by her car, did not walk towards the scene. She saw the Taser wires already connected and heard the cycling sound. She could not see into the car, but could see the door was open. Appeared to be an empty car to her.

She saw thw wires, saw them moving, heard one of the officers yelling "get out of the car," Macomber took a step backwards, and Sery took a stance and fired. She heard three or four shots.

Schrunk asks about being confused at all about the sequence of the Taser and the shots, could the shots have come first. She says it was very rapid. Her first recolelctionn was seeing the "chain" and then she heard shots. She says the Taser was already deployed when the shots were fired.

Schrunk asks if she's sure it was shots and not something else she heard. Her passeger asked "Is that gunfire," and she didn't think so, and then she heard gunfire and said, "No, that's gunshots." The first sound she thought was the sound of a chain dragging. Only then did she hear the pop pop pop.

Schrunk asked if she would grant that it all happened fast and could be confusing. He explains that people see things differently.

Update

Next up is Karen Renee Sanchez, the passenger of the previous witness. They stopped when they noticed a car pulled over that looked vacant. Two officers crouched down near driver's door of Perez' car. She and her friend got out of the car.

Another round of the diagram routine.

They were looking right at the door of Perez' car which was open, and the two crouched officers.

The officers were close to the open door but not inside the vehicle, weapons drawn. She hears one officer yell "Don't do it" and a yell of "Get out of the car." Then they both began shooting.

The weapons "looked like guns." Handguns. She could not hear anything from out of the car.

She saw "two streams" going into the car,but they weren't the same thing. One was a stream of light.

What drew her attention? It looked like a vacated vehicle. She says she heard a buzz like a bug zapper, or like a chain across a car really really fast. That was the stream of light she says she saw.

She heard the shots at the same time she witnesses the zapper, but heard the zapping sound during the gunshots, then the zapping kept going.

Both weapons looked like handguns but what was coming out of them was not the same.

Whatever was coming out of the weapons was coming out at the same time.

She says the photo of the inactive Taser wires does not look like the "light" she saw.

She reiterates that she could not see anyone in the car, and that the door was open when they pulled up.

After everything was finished she said she saw offciers going to the back of the police car and pulling out yellow tape. Her friend told her to pull the car over, she left the scene then came back five minutes later and her friend was giving a statement to an officer. She herself also spoke to an officer at the scene.

She says she doesn't know which officer said which warning, or if it was just one officer, but it was the officers. She doesn't know if they were talking to each other or the person in the car (she was asked by Schrunk).