The defendant in a domestic carjacking trial testified before DC Superior Court Judge Danya Dayson on Oct. 28, followed by closing arguments.
Bernard King, 40, is charged with carjacking and threatening to kidnap or injure a person due to his alleged involvement in a carjacking that took place on the 2000 block of S Street SE on June 10.
During the trial, King told the court that the incident happened because the victim, the mother of his children, had taken his phone. He explained that he used ApplePay to buy groceries, and that he was unable to buy food for his children without the device. He resorted to borrowing money and raiding his relative’s fridge for food.
According to King, the victim had not been home in “three-to-four days,” and that he had been growing frustrated and “desperate.” He said he was “concerned about where she was,” and used an iPad to find her location. When asked why he didn’t call the police about his wife by prosecutors, King told the court that he didn’t have his phone.
When he saw that the victim at a convenience store, he intended to retrieve his phone and convince her to return home. He said he was unable to get his phone back, but that he was able to take hers instead.
King said that he followed the victim out of the parking lot in his car, and expected her to drive home. However, he said that when she turned right instead of left, he knew she was not going home.
He told the court that he “pulled over and blocked her off” with his car because she was “driving erratically.” When questioned further, he testified to the victim looking disoriented, and that he thought she may have been drunk or high.
He told the court that he was “concerned for her safety,” and said that she didn’t know how to drive because she “doesn’t have a license.”
After pulling over, King claimed that he opened the victim’s door, and that she ran out of her car and to a nearby officer’s house. He testified he got in the car and drove out of view of nearby camera footage, before claiming to park the car.
When asked how the victim was supposed to return home, he told the court that “she lived half a block away.” When the prosecution asked if King was planning on leaving the victim to walk home, he reiterated that she lived nearby, that the car had been visibly parked, and that she still had the key fob.
The prosecution asked King why he didn’t ask the victim to go home, and instead threatened her by telling her that she was “going to die,” after he claimed to be concerned about her.
King admitted threatening the victim, but said that he didn’t mean it and that he was just frustrated. He also said that he thought the victim would go home after he took the car because she knew no adult was at home.
When asked by prosecutors why he didn’t return home to the kids, after claiming to be worried about them as well, he said that he was worried about the police, and that he thought the victim was probably lying to the police officers.
The responding officer addressed King’s “allegations” that the victim was intoxicated during the carjacking, saying that she had been around the victim for “quite a while” and had not observed any signs of the victim being under the influence. According to the officer, the victim was “a normal victim” and just appeared to be in distress.
The officer also noted that none of the other responding officers or witnesses had expressed any concerns about the victim’s being drunk or driving erratically.
However, the prosecution said that it was the defendant who followed he victim, blocked her in, pushed her car against the curb, and “force[d] her to take evasive maneuvers” to escape. The prosecution called the altercation the “most terrifying moments” of the victim’s life.
The prosecution also rebutted King’s claims that he was concerned for the victim. The prosecutors noted that, after removing the victim from her car, King threatened her life. Those were not the words of someone who was concerned, but rather, the words of “a man who was really pissed off,” according to the prosecution.
The prosecution asked the jury to consider the “pressures” on the victim given her “competing interests.” In previous testimony, the victim was “evasive” during questioning.
The prosecution insisted that the victim was forthright but wouldn’t “directly implicated Mr. King in criminal conduct.” The victim in this case was not unreliable, “just human,” according to the prosecution.
The prosecution told the jury to look at the testimony from unbiased third parties, as well as the camera footage that corroborated the witness testimony. The victim was followed, forcibly removed from her vehicle, and threatened before the defendant drove off with her car. According to the prosecution, “that’s a carjacking.”
Prosecutors asked the jury to use their “common sense,” and find the defendant guilty on both counts.
Karen Minor, King’s attorney, emphasized that the nature of this dispute was an argument between two individuals in a domestic relationship.
She stated that they live together, sleep in the same room, and are raising their children together. According to Minor, it was common for both of them to use each other’s cars without asking.
The defense stated that the victim’s testimony contradicted what she said at the scene, and that there was no concrete evidence of threats made by the defendant or of him having a gun at the time. The victim had also testified that she “got out” of the vehicle, rather than being dragged out as she originally stated.
Minor followed up by stating that the two key eyewitnesses were too far away and had obstructed views of the incident which cast doubt on their testimony as some details of their accounts conflicted with video of the incident.
The prosecution rebutted that there is no exception to the law based on the relationship between suspect and victim, even if they were having an argument.
They concluded by stating that the victim must have been forced out of the car in fear and under threat.
Parties are slated to reconvene when the jury reaches a verdict.
