Parties Agree Non-Fatal Shooting Verdict Depends on ID’ing Defendant

By Laura Berol - August 27, 2024
Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects |

In their closing arguments on Aug. 26, the prosecution and defense in Marquez Beasley‘s non-fatal shooting trial before DC Superior Court Judge Anthony Epstein agreed that the jury’s verdict will depend on whether they trust witnesses’ identification of Beasley as the assailant.

Beasley, 32, is charged with two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed, assault with a dangerous weapon, and three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. These charges stem from his alleged involvement in a non-fatal shooting incident that injured three individuals on Aug. 16, 2023, on the 900 block of Division Avenue, NE.

The prosecution and defense agreed that the incident began with a traffic accident caused by an unlicensed driver carrying two passengers in a Hyundai, who cut off an SUV on a turn. After the drivers stopped to exchange insurance information, the Hyundai’s driver was pistol-whipped and four shots were fired, striking one of the Hyundai’s passengers and a bystander.

According to the prosecution, one of the passengers placed a video call to their mother, who owned the Hyundai, and handed the phone to the driver of the SUV. The mother testified that she saw the driver for only a few seconds but recognized him as Beasley because she knew him from occasional interactions in the neighborhood and his social media posts as a local rapper. 

“It only takes a few seconds to recognize someone who’s familiar to you,” the prosecutor said.

“Isn’t it possible that the person she saw may have looked like him, but she jumped to the conclusion that it was him?” asked John Machado, Beasley’s defense attorney. 

If the mother’s identification of Beasley wasn’t a mistake, Machado said, there were several reasons for her to lie. She might have been hostile to Beasley, who she said in her testimony was a member of a crew. She might have wanted the notoriety of accusing a local celebrity. Or she might have wanted to distract attention from letting an unlicensed person drive her car, causing an accident. 

Machado noted the mother first said she never allowed the unlicensed driver to take her car but later said she sometimes let him.

“When she is presented with the evidence of something that she absolutely said that contradicts something she said earlier, she suddenly has no memory of it,” Machado argued.

Machado suggested the mother might have persuaded the Hyundai’s driver and passengers after the incident to identify Beasley as the assailant.

“You think they had an ax to grind and wanted to come in here and pin something on Mr. Beasley that he didn’t do?” the prosecutor asked in his rebuttal. “What incentive did they have to do that?”

The prosecutor pointed out that the Hyundai’s driver and one passenger picked out Beasley from a photo array.

Machado said both witnesses were uncertain whether they had the right person. 

According to Machado, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) detective who conducted the photo array suggested to one of the witnesses that she might say her confidence level in identifying Beasley was five on a scale of one to ten. The detective added, “I don’t want to put words in your mouth.”

The witness said her confidence level was “one-and-a-half or two.”

Even though it wasn’t the case, the detective allegedly told the witnesses the prosecution wouldn’t go forward unless they agreed. That’s because he wanted their identifications to support his arrest warrant for Beasley, according to Machado.

“The detective wants this conclusion–tunnel vision–and won’t see any evidence to the contrary,” Machado told the jury.

Machado said one of the witnesses described the assailant to the police as having a goatee, and another said he was recognizable from a tattoo in the middle of his forehead. Social media posts of Beasley from the time of the incident show him with a full beard and without a forehead tattoo.

“You have people who don’t want to be here, maybe because they know this has gone too far,” Machado said about the witnesses.

The prosecution and defense both said the shooting victim who was a bystander, not involved in the traffic accident, testified to seeing gunshots coming from the window of a passing vehicle.

The prosecutor said Beasley, after getting out of the SUV, fired shots while standing on the sidewalk. He suggested the bystander was mistaken in thinking the shots came from a vehicle.

Machado said there was no reason to dismiss the bystander’s testimony. He argued that the shots could have come from someone who hadn’t been in the traffic accident.

Even if Beasley was the driver of the SUV and had fired the shots, Machado said, he couldn’t be convicted of assault with intent to kill because of the way the shots were aimed. They had gone into the ground or struck victims in the legs.

The prosecutor said the Chevy Tahoe Beasley owned resembled the SUV in the traffic accident, based on surveillance video footage. 

A witness who impounded Beasley’s Tahoe testified to signs of repair on the front left bumper, which was the part of the SUV in the traffic accident that collided with the Hyundai, according to the prosecutor.

Machado said he had photos of Beasley’s Tahoe’s front left bumper after the incident, and it was undamaged. 

According to Machado, the prosecution had dismissed his photos by saying the resolution wasn’t good. He invited the jury to compare his photos to the prosecution’s and decide which had better resolution.

“Please consider the sloppy tunnel vision of the detectives in this case, and please come back with the only reasonable, rational verdict you can in this case: not guilty,” Machado told jurors.

The prosecution ended by noting the three witness identifications of Beasley and the similarities between Beasley’s Tahoe and the suspect vehicle.

“What are the odds that this is all just a big coincidence?” asked the prosecutor.

Parties are scheduled to reconvene when the jury comes to a verdict.