OK, so I’ve gone on about the jury duty and the voir dire and what a pain it was to find lunch in Kew Gardens, but I couldn’t talk about the trial until it was over. Well – it’s over, as of Tuesday.
Here’s a good summary of the crime. Parolee allegedly guns down mother’s boyfriend after argument
This happened over four years ago. The defendant, Calvin Cross, was arrested the day after the murder. His cousin, who was one of the four guys, was eventually arrested for the same crime and is currently at Riker’s – he was one of the witnesses.
So this is the story that the prosecution delivered and the defense did their best to pick apart:
Calvin Cross (aka “CJ”) got out of jail and went on parole July 2021. (We were not told why he’d been in jail.) He moved in with his mother (Rodrianne, aka “Goochie”) in a house in Jamaica, Queens, along with his mother’s boyfriend (Alfonzo Dennis, aka “Fresh”) and at least one of Calvin’s brothers. According to the parole officer, CJ and Fresh didn’t get along very well. Fresh sold pot (in 2021. Wasn’t it already partially legal?) But not like, out of the house, it’s not like they had a string of customers coming in and out of the house. But sometimes Fresh had a big stash of pot in their bedroom closet.
At the end of November one night, CJ and his brothers, their mom, Fresh and Fresh’s buddy Matthew Morris (MM) were hanging around and CJ got in an argument with one of his brothers, who’d slept in his bed (?). Mom tried to step in and CJ shoved her to the floor. She got upset and called 911. CJ left in a huff. (We got to see the bodycam footage of the 911 police call.) Testimony indicated that, following this, Mom officially threw CJ out of the house and changed the locks – he went to live with his girlfriend. (fun fact: the girlfriend attended a lot of the trial and would give us jurors dirty looks until the lady court officer told her to cut it out)
So, it turns out that CJ and his cousin Kashife (aka “Ratchet”) had been plotting to rob Mom’s boyfriend Fresh of his pot. And on Dec 6 (a week after the shoving incident), CJ called Kashife that this was a go. (we don’t know why CJ thought that the pot was there to be taken. He was no longer in the house, and as it turned out, there was very little pot) Kashife (who was also a former jailbird and a loser all around) was in Brooklyn – once Calvin told him the game was afoot, he called his buddy Killa, who had a big SUV, and Killa, Kashife and two randos who were never identified went to Queens and picked up CJ a couple of blocks from Mom’s house to go burgle the pot.
They got to Mom’s house, got out of the car (except for Killa), and at least one of them had a gun. The four guys put on ski masks (aka “balaclavas”, which confused the court reporter) and went to the door. In the house at this time were just Fresh, his buddy MM, and a third dude who was identified as :MM’s friend’s brother”, who they didn’t know very well (and who was never identified. This got very confusing. He was also identified as “MM’s brother’s friend” sometimes). They were just hanging out and eating (“Jamaican food”, MM testified) and watching a movie.
CJ tried to come in, but couldn’t open the door. (conflicting testimony as to whether this was because Mom had changed the locks, or it was just jammed) Fresh looked through the window and said “It’s Goochie’s son”, but of course she had 3 sons so there was much discussion about whether he meant it was CJ or not. He let them in. Why he’d let four guys wearing ski masks into his home was not really explored.
One of the four (according to the prosecution, it was CJ, but this was not proven incontrovertibly) went to the back to get the pot. And there was no pot. So that person (almost certainly CJ, but not proven) came back out cocking a gun (!!!!) and told everyone to get on the floor.
No one got on the floor. Couch dude (MM’s friend’s brother’s friend or whatever) on the couch ran and was never seen again*. Fresh ran for the door, but CJ (or ‘the shooter’) shot him in the back basically as he hit the open door frame. He went flying and ended up on the lawn, face down. The shooter then went outside and shot him again. Then the shooter came back in and shot MM five times! MM had not run because his ankle was healing from a break, but from his testimony, he identified the shooter as CJ. (but shooter was still in a ski mask) MM ended up surviving (as you can see), and was one of the main witnesses.
*all told, 5 people ran out of this house at some point, but testimony was conflicting about order of operations. Did the couch dude run out before the killing or after? Undetermined.
By this point, Killa had driven away, the other three masked men (including the cousin) had run, and the shooter (probably CJ) ran too, catching up with them. We saw a lot of house-camera footage of these four guys running down the street. The two unidentified randos went one way and were never seen again (or identified). CJ and his cousin went another way and ended up hiding out in a backyard for a while, where they ditched the gun and the cousin’s jacket. (at this point, we know that it was definitely those two guys, from their clothing, and that they had the gun – we saw house cam footage of them freaking out in the house’s driveway and trying to place a phone call and figure out what to do next)
Over the next day or so, the jacket was found by police canvassing the neighborhood, and that plus a hat that was left behind at the house, were definitely the cousin’s – both from shop/house camera footage that showed him wearing them- he was distinctive because he had dreads – and from DNA testing. The gun was in the same place as the jacket, but police missed it, because it was shoved behind a board. This was found by the homeowner weeks later, but of course, had been out in the elements and they couldn’t get good prints off of it, although they definitely could identify it from shell casings and such as the gun that had shot Fresh and MM.
CJ went home to his girlfriend’s (we saw him, on house-cam footage, walking down her block) and the cousin (according to his own testimony) went to hide out at his brother’s, and then went (home) to Florida. CJ went to his scheduled parole hearing the next day and was immediately arrested. The cousin (see article above) wasn’t arrested until months later.
Next up: the cast of characters and a blow-by-blow of the trial!
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