THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
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Second Student Senate coalition launches to address sexual assault and affordability p. 2
Kansas runner Sharon Lokedi continues to smash school records The University Daily Kansan
vol. 136 // iss. 10 Mon., Feb. 12, 2018
KU senior uses BLM movement to inspire photography
SEE LOKEDI • PAGE 10
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Chandler Boese/KANSAN The defendants of the Oct. 1 shooting listen to a witness at a hearing on Thursday, Jan. 11.
Shooting suspects will go to trial The three men charged in connection with the Oct. 1 triple murder are scheduled to begin a jury trial in May
TAYLOR SMITH & EMILY WELLBORN @KansanNews “F--- you. I didn’t shoot nobody, b----,” said Ahmad Rayton as he walked out of the courtroom. Rayton is one of three Topeka men who will be on trial for the Oct. 1 shooting, which was decided Friday after four days of preliminary hearings. Rayton, Dominique McMillon and Anthony Roberts Jr. face charges ranging from criminal possession of a firearm by a felon to first-degree murder. Roberts faces the most charges with one count of attempted second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree murder. The primary objective of the Thursday, the day before the preliminary hearing concluded, was to allow the defense to cross-examine the state’s witness, Detective Dean Brown, who was responsible for forensic analysis of the video footage that ultimately led to the charges that were filed against the defendants. Brown had started his testimony on Thursday with how the Lawerence Police Department obtained six pieces of video evidence from Vermont Towers, the community center, two officers’ dashboard cameras and a traffic light at 11th and Massachusetts streets. “We canvassed the area generally, looking at external parts of the building,”
Brown said. He explained how the footage of the shooting from officer Michael McLaren’s dashcam parked across the street was his starting point and how he followed the figures in the original video through area surveillance cameras. The description of figures in that video led to connections between the three men on trial and one of their friends during dashcam footage of a traffic stop from later that night. One man at the shooting was wearing a light blue top with a black stripe, which was similar to what McMillon was wearing during the traffic stop. A man in a dark blue shirt and light pants, and a man in a light belt with dark pants was also seen in the footage from the shooting, similar to Roberts’ and Rayton’s respective outfits when they were stopped. In the footage of Massachusetts Street, these last two figures were moving like shooters would have been expected to, Brown testified. The vehicle from the car stop was also linked to a dark vehicle that arrived at the same time as a light SUV shortly before the shooting and then left immediately after. The car from the traffic stop was a dark Kia Sportage with a broken passenger tail light and a “crooked” license plate, which Brown pointed out had similar characteristics to the vehicle from footage recovered from the
community center across the street from where the shooting occurred. “I can’t exclude it as the vehicle that is eventually stopped by Officer McCann,” Brown said. Brown also presented a PowerPoint presentation and footage of the shooting slowed down and enhanced to show where four of the five victims, including three who were fatally injured, were in relation to the violence. The defense attorneys strongly objected to the testimony, saying the detective’s narration of the video could be misleading, given that he was describing details of figures the defense couldn’t see. The attorneys said Brown was testifying on what we should be seeing, instead of what was there. “If it’s not visible, it’s not visible and we shouldn’t need a witness to tell us what we should be seeing,” Roberts’ attorney, Jennifer Chaffee said. At one point, Michael Clarke, attorney for Rayton, said the testimony could potentially be “hearsay.” Assistant District Attorney David Melton said they could clearly see the characteristics Brown was describing, the dark vertical stripe on the back of McMillon’s shirt in particular, and that Brown was giving expert testimony. “We’re not making this up,” he said. Ultimately, the objections were overruled by
Charges against defendants • •
•
Dominique McMillon: one count of aggravated assault and battery Ahmad Rayton: one count of attempted second-degree murder and one count of criminal possession of a firearm by a felon Anthony Roberts Jr.: one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder
Pokorny and all of the videos were admitted into evidence. On Friday, Clarke focused his attention on the accuracy of the video footage presented as evidence against his client, asking Brown “what software” he used to compile the footage, which was recovered from multiple sources. Brown stated that he used Adobe Photoshop and FFmpeg to resize images, adjust brightness and contrast, and add borders, among other things. J.C. Gilroy, attorney for McMillon, questioned Brown’s judgment as a law enforcement official. Without approaching the podium, Gilroy asked Brown whether he was able to conclusively identify McMillon from the recovered footage. As Brown began to state that the physical appearance and dress of the individual in the footage seemed to match those witnesses attributed to McMillon, Gilroy interrupted him and clarified his initial query, asking if Brown was able to “specifically”
identify McMillon based solely on the video he had compiled; Brown responded “no.” Chaffee declined to question the witness. After reviewing the charges brought against the defendants, hearing eyewitness and professional testimony to support those charges, and viewing physical evidence presented to the court earlier in the hearing, Judge Sally Pokorny determined that there was sufficient cause to bring the case to a jury trial. Pokorny dismissed claims from the defense that some of the eyewitness testimony was unreliable, stating that was not the purpose of the hearings. The prosecution and defense agreed upon the date of March 27 to determine if the defendants would stand trial together or separately, with the trial officially slated to begin May 14. — Edited by Alexandra Martinez