Witness says suspect pulled out what ‘looked like a gun’ before he was shot by Portsmouth officer
PORTSMOUTH — Marilyn Britts was already running late for work on Oct. 29, 2017, when she came upon an intersection full of police vehicles and officers.
Unable to make her turn, Britts started looking around, she told jurors in Portsmouth Circuit Court on Tuesday.
“I was looking across the street to the house,” she testified. “I saw a person come out of a window. He jumped out and he started running.”
Next, Britts saw the man fall to the ground, get up, then reach into his pants.
“He pulled something out,” she said. “It looked like a gun. And he started running.”
Fearing what might happen next, she said she ducked down in her car. Moments later, she heard shots fired.
Britts was one of several witnesses called by the defense Tuesday to testify on the second day of a trial for Portsmouth police officer Jeremy Durocher. The officer, who’s still employed by the department, is charged with unlawfully shooting 18-year-old burglary suspect Deontrace Ward as Ward fled a house that he and an accomplice had broken into.
Durocher, 37, initially faced a charge of aggravated malicious wounding but Judge William H. Shaw III dismissed the charge Tuesday when prosecutors rested their case because he didn’t believe they’d proven that Ward was permanently injured, which is required for a conviction. Aggravated malicious wounding is punishable by up to life in prison, while malicious wounding carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.
Also on Tuesday, Shaw dismissed a juror for making comments he called “disrespectful.” The first comments were made Monday, when the juror was heard saying she wanted to leave and that the trial “was a joke.” On Tuesday, she was heard saying, ” I don’t blame them,” when the judge mentioned one juror had failed to return after a break in the trial.
The trial started with 12 jurors and two alternates, but no alternates are left as a result of the dismissal and the no-show juror. The trial is expected to wrap up by Wednesday or Thursday.
Witness Brett Wood told jurors he was visiting his mother, who lived in the house next to the one broken into. He said he called 911 after seeing two people wearing hoodies with the hoods pulled up over the heads standing outside the house.
Wood said he saw one with “his hand on his pants” and “thought he was going to go for a gun.” He also said he heard someone yell, “drop the gun” repeatedly before hearing the shots.
Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Haille Hogfeldt, however, played body cam footage at the end of her cross-examination of Wood that suggested Durocher made no statements about a gun until after he fired his weapon.
Also testifying Tuesday were former Portsmouth police chiefs Tonya Chapman and Angela Greene. Chapman was chief at the time of the shooting, and Greene, who’s now chief of police in Lexington, was assistant chief. Both testified about the department’s use of force guidelines and under what circumstances an officer is justified in shooting at a suspect.
While both women said officers aren’t allowed to shoot at a suspect simply to stop the person from fleeing, they said officers can fire at them if they believe their own life, or the lives of others, are at risk. Firing at a suspect who has a gun in their hand and is running in the direction of other officers would be justifiable, they said.
Durocher is expected to testify Wednesday, after the jury visits the scene of the shooting.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
