Victim, ‘A Thousand Percent,’ Certain of Identifying Shooting Suspect, Says Detective

By Hayden Clark [former] - July 18, 2024
Daily Stories | Non-Fatal Shooting | Shooting | Suspects |

DC Superior Court Judge Heidi Pasichow rejected a shooting defendant’s motion to suppress photo identification evidence in a July 17 hearing.

James Guillory, 24, is charged with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, two counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, unlawful possession of a firearm with a prior conviction, and carrying a pistol without a license for allegedly shooting and injuring two individuals on June 15, 2023 on the 4600 block of Hillside Road, SE. 

A male victim sustained a firearm injury to the hip, and a female victim sustained a ball bearing (BB) gun injury to the nose.

The prosecution called a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) who testified he presented the female victim a photo array of a targeted suspect and random individuals. The woman said recognized the individual to be the shooter.

During the hearing, the prosecution played video footage of the detective conducting the interview with the victim. When the victim identified the shooting suspect, choosing a picture of Guillory, she was asked by the detective the level of confidence in her choice. The victim responded she was, “A thousand percent” sure he was the shooter.

In cross-examination, Guillory’s defense attorney, Varsha Govindaraju, replayed video footage from the interview and pointed out one specific segment in which the victim identified some of the individuals as her friends. The detective then informed the victim that some of the photos of individuals were randomly selected. 

The defense argued this was a violation of protocol as the detective was not supposed to indicate any photos were randomly selected.

In addition, the defense argued there were other factors that could have led to misidentification such as the detective paraphrasing instructions of the interview, the victim’s lack of attention to instructions being on the phone some of the time, and the victim potentially seeing other pages of a photo array that that she should not.

Judge Pasichow rejected the defense’s request to suppress the photo array evidence, arguing there were no circumstances that would have led to misidentification. 

Parties are scheduled to return Aug. 1.