Trial opens for man charged in Gary retaliation slaying
Prosecutors said Tuesday that Martell Flippins gunned down Pierre Patterson in the middle of Broadway Avenue in Gary for killing his brother about a year earlier.
Defense lawyers said they couldn’t prove he was in the vehicle, plus anyone in Flippins’ family had the same motive.
The trial for Flippins, 36, of Chicago, kicked off Tuesday after jury selection the prior day. He is charged with murder and unlawful possession of a firearm in Patterson’s March 12, 2023 death.
Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz said in opening arguments that her office was about to charge Patterson, 24, in the March 6, 2022 murder of LaVell Hughes, Jr., 26, of Gary.
Flippins, instead, ambushed Patterson in a “hail of gunfire” as he stepped onto the median near 50th and Broadway Avenue, then sped away, she said. He was shot six times.
A bullet casing “stuck” on Flippins’ green SUV was matched to the crime scene. The shooting was caught on security video from a distance. Cell phone data put Flippins at the scene, she said.
Defense attorney Marc Laterzo said Flippins’ other “half-brothers” and “cousins” had the same motive and access to the same vehicle. Prosecutors had no corroborating evidence that Flippins was driving or fired a gun, he said.
It was “speculative,” the lawyer said.
On Monday, Gary Police Det. Eric Green showed jurors video clips he edited together from various security videos on Broadway Avenue. One video showed the SUV had its lights off in a parking lot and pulled forward. It showed “several muzzle flashes” before Patterson appeared to get knocked backward to the ground.
Defense co-counsel Sonya Scott-Dix pressed him on the video — including how he tailed a green SUV on various black and white videos and noted points where the vehicle turned around to go park was out-of-view for jurors.
The affidavit alleges Flippins’ green SUV was parked for 1 1/2 hours in a bar parking lot, before he drove around to “ambush” and shoot Patterson.
He was walking across Broadway around 3:15 a.m. March 12, 2023 to Fatso’s bar — the former Voodoo Lounge — at 5060 Broadway, when the SUV driver opened fire.
Police found multiple bullet casings from a handgun and rifle, according to court records. The SUV had its lights off and continued to drive north on Broadway. It had no license plate.
Patterson was a “known suspect” in the March 6, 2022 death of Lavell “Big Slab” Hughes, 26, in front of “many witnesses” at Trendsetters Bar in Calumet Township.
Patterson was a “self-admitted” gang member with the 49th Avenue Boys in Gary, the affidavit alleges.
“Not one day goes by without me shedding tears ever since I got the call … can’t wait to make (expletive) feel the way I do,” Flippins wrote on Facebook after Hughes’ death.
Police searched through records to find Flippins had a 2018 green Chevrolet Equinox that matched the description of the vehicle used in Patterson’s death.
Investigators went undercover and tailed Flippins from work. They lost him in Lansing, Illinois, but later found the empty vehicle and impounded it. They later found a .40-caliber bullet casing under the windshield wiper.
After Monday’s hearing, Patterson’s mother said he is survived by nine children. Another relative said he was a “family man” and working to turn his life around in the six months to a year before he was killed.
The trial is before Judge Salvador Vasquez. Deputy Prosecutor Keith Anderson is assigned with Jatkiewicz.
The murder trial for Kriston Barbee — another alleged 49th Avenue Boys gang member — went to jurors Tuesday for the Feb. 15, 2023 killing of 13-year-old Orie Dodson. The motives for the two slayings are not directly connected.
