Trial begins for St. Petersburg man charged in death of man killed by deputy

Not long after starting his night shift one January evening, Deputy Richard Curry popped into a St. Petersburg IHOP with the rest of his unit.

Before Curry got a chance to eat, the Pinellas deputies received a call from their sergeant about a driver of a Lexus who’d fled two traffic stops in Clearwater.

Authorities knew the Lexus was registered to a house in St. Petersburg, about five minutes away from where the deputies had sat down for dinner.

Curry was the first to arrive and set up a perimeter around the home.

The driver of the Lexus never showed up, but minutes after parking in a nearby alley, Curry shot and killed a man who aimed an assault-style weapon at him, authorities said.

The man’s accomplice, Delvin Ford, fled the scene, authorities said, and deputies in a sheriff’s office helicopter later found him perched on a nearby rooftop with a handgun.

Almost four years later, Ford, now 26, has been brought to trial this week. He is charged with second-degree murder and attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.

Prosecutors say he is responsible for the death of Marquis Golden, the man shot and killed by Curry.

Under Florida law, someone can be charged with murder in a person’s death if it occurred while they committed certain serious felonies, even if they didn’t cause the death directly. In this case, prosecutors said Ford was committing attempted murder of a law enforcement officer at the time that Golden was killed.

The state painted Curry as an officer facing a life-or-death situation who fired upon men pointing guns at him.

Jonathan Duncan, Ford’s public defender, said the two men couldn’t have known that Curry was a deputy.

During opening statements Wednesday, Duncan said prosecutors were peddling an “easy narrative” where a “deputy shoots bad guys.”

He argued it’s not that simple.

“The facts of this case do not tell the story of two young men trying to kill a cop,” Duncan said. “It tells a story of confusion.”

The shooting broke out Jan. 23, 2020, when one of the two men walked up to Curry’s unmarked car — a Ford Focus rented by the sheriff’s office. Curry was parked in an alley across from a house on the 2200 block of 36th Street South in St. Petersburg, waiting for the Lexus.

Pictures provided by prosecutors show Curry was wearing black pants and a black T-shirt with the sheriff’s office logo under a vest that read “sheriff” in all capital letters.

The man rapped on Curry’s window. When he rolled the window down, Curry said the man called him a “troll,” a slang term for law enforcement that is short for “patrol.”

Curry testified that he did not identify himself as a deputy, and said, ”Get away from my car.”

Ford’s lawyers would later question Curry’s memory of this interaction and whether the man recognized him as a deputy.

Moments later, Ford and Golden returned armed with guns, prosecutors said.

When one aimed a rifle at Curry, he sprung out of his car and fired his 9mm pistol 18 times, prosecutors said.

Golden fired an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and Ford fired a .40-caliber handgun at the deputy, according to the sheriff’s office. Prosecutors said fingerprints left on the weapons matched the two men.

Curry testified that he saw one of them, later identified as Golden, drop to the ground and crawl away. Their guns were found behind a red car parked outside the home.

Curry shot Golden five times, prosecutors said. After deputies found Golden wounded in the backyard, Curry tried to give him CPR. He died shortly after.

With the help of a police dog and a sheriff’s office helicopter, authorities found Ford hiding with a .40-caliber pistol on the roof of a home one block over.

Jessica Manuele, an assistant Pinellas public defender, said one detail of Curry’s story had changed over the years: who shot first.

Shortly after the incident, it wasn’t immediately clear who fired first, the sheriff’s office said in a news conference after the shooting.

A year later, the agency stated in a newsletter that it was Golden and Ford who opened fire on Curry.

Curry was named law enforcement officer of the year by the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police for his “heroism” during the incident, the newsletter reads.

On Tuesday, prosecutors, the defense and Curry agreed that he had fired first. Curry testified that he didn’t know if anyone was firing back during the incident, and only found out later, after investigators discovered shell casings discharged from the other guns..

The state and Ford’s lawyers also disagreed over whether he and Golden knew Curry was a deputy.

Duncan, Ford’s lawyer, argued that Ford and Golden had “no clue who was in the car at the time.”

Ford’s lawyers also tried casting doubt on whether the word “sheriff” was clearly visible in the dark through tinted windows and if he was wearing the vest at the time of the incident.

Curry testified he had been wearing it and had not tried to conceal the word “sheriff” on his vest that night.

The state and defense also clashed over what was said by the man who walked up to Curry’s unmarked vehicle. Duncan said there was no recording to confirm if Curry had been called a “troll.”

He said that Ford and Golden lived in a tightknit neighborhood. When they saw an unfamiliar vehicle parked on their block, they thought they might have to defend themselves, Duncan said.

Duncan railed against Curry’s decision to start shooting instead of trying to drive off in his already-running car.

Curry testified that getting out of the car and firing his weapon was not his only option, but it was his best option. He said he was worried if he stayed put or tried to drive off, the men would open fire on him.

“That AR-15 was going to tear through this whole car,” he told the jury.

Ford, wearing a white dress shirt and gold tie, sat quietly at the defense table. He has been held in a Pinellas County jail without bond since his arrest four years ago.

The trial is scheduled to last through next week.