People v. Browder CA2/8

BACKGROUND

On September 4, 2019, about 1:10 p.m., Timothy Phillips began backing his gray car out of the driveway outside his house on South Harvard Boulevard. James Carter, a passenger in the car, knocked Phillips’s cigarette out of his hand. Phillips stopped his car near the curb and bent down to pick up his cigarette. Phillips heard several gunshots as glass began breaking all over the car. Phillips noticed that Carter had been shot and appeared to be unconscious. He drove to a friend’s house and put Carter into her car. She drove Carter to the hospital. Carter died from a gunshot wound. Phillips returned to his home and spoke with police. He told them he saw a four-door burgundy vehicle with tinted windows, which looked like a Mitsubishi or a Mazda. It was the only car on the street. Phillips believed there were two people inside, and that the shots came from the passenger side of the vehicle.2 He did not hear anything before the shooting began, and nobody in the burgundy vehicle said anything to him. Much of the police investigation focused on video surveillance footage. Police recovered footage from about 20 locations. At trial, Detective John Flores testified that…