The Alabama police officer denied immunity for shooting a black man armed in his courtyard

A Alabama On Monday, the judge established that a police officer did not show that he acts for self -defense when he shot a reinforced -colored man who was in his front courtyard, after the video of the camera revealed that the officer shot 18 bullets in less than two seconds after identifying himself as an application of the law.

Mac Marquette, 25, is accused of murder in the fatal shootings of Steve Perkins just before 2 on 29 September 2023, while accompanying a truck driver to return to the Perkins tap at his house at home Decatur.

The judge of the County Circuit of Morgan Charles Elliott denied the motion of Marquette to archive the case in an audition of self -defense. The new date of the trial is set for June, but the defense can appeal to Elliott’s decision at the State Court of Appeal.

The “Stand Your Ground” law of Alabama guarantees immunity from accusation to anyone who uses fatal force as long as they are in a place that have the right to be and reasonably believed to be in danger.

Elliott wrote that the jury will have to consider if Marquette “acts in his role as police officer” when he shot Perkins.

“It is on this zipper that the door of this case oscillates,” he said.

The driver of the Caleb Combs trailer was authorized by Perkins ‘creditor to return to the truck because Perkins was behind months on his payments, according to Liens’ documents they made the test. But the sentence said that Marquette was not authorized to assist the combed combs on an Alabama law that requires an order of the court for law enforcement to be involved in a recovery, which the officers did not have.

The judge listened to conflicting testimonies in a previous hearing on why Marquette and the other two officers, Joey Williams and Christopher Mukadam, were primarily in Perkins House.

Marquette, Mukadam and Williams were shipped to help the combs after Perkins pointed out a chest gun when the driver of the trailer truck tried for the first time to take Perkins’ vehicle, according to the testimony of Williams and Mukadam. Combs met the officers in a nearby trailer courtyard.

Combs waited for the three officers to open secretly around Perkins’ house before Combs returned to the Reposse the Perkins vehicle for the second time. All three officers were intentionally hidden by Perkins’ main door when Combs returned and Perkins emerged again from his home with his gun, indicating it to Combs.

The video of the body camera revealed that Marquette unloaded all the bullets in its gun less than two seconds after emerging from where she hid on the side of Perkins’ house. Even then, he wrote the judge, Marquette was partially obstructed by the Perkins truck bed. Perkins turned to face Marquette and briefly tried to remove the gun from the officer before Marquette started shooting, according to Elliott.

Before Combs returned to Perkins’ house, the order said that the officers should have said to Combs “that he could have taken anyone who wanted with him to help with recovery, but the police could not be without judicial process”.

Both officers who were with Marquette testified to be there to “maintain peace” and to “investigate” Perkins for having pulled a gun on comb, which could be a crime of threat if the Combs had decided to press the accusations.

The state agent who investigated the case testified that it was a standard practice for officers accompanying people to help maintain order. But he also said that “visibility” is generally necessary to maintain peace and that the way officers created was “unusual” to investigate the threat because it is a method in general “used for an active crime scene”.

Since there was no active crime scene when the officers arrived, Elliott decreed that Marquette “acts outside the reach of his authority” to investigate a threatening accusation “and was therefore a transgressor” when he waited outside the Perkins House.

Elliott said the jury will have to decide if Marquette was at Perkins’ house to maintain peace.

On the basis of this determination, the read sentence, the jury will have to decide both if this means that Marquette was acting as part of its responsibilities as a police officer and if a “reasonable” officer would have killed Perkins in the same situation.

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Riddle is a body member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local editorial offices to be reported on non -covered issues.