Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — The lawyer for a woman accused of paralyzing a Dallas police lieutenant suggested today that the officer, Carlton Marshall, wound up getting shot because the SWAT team he supervised was poorly trained.
Marisela Villa’s attorney, Paul Johnson, also raised questions about how quickly SWAT team members identified themselves as police during the 2007 drug raid in which Marshall was shot.
Villa is on trial for shooting Marshall during a raid at the home of her boyfriend, an admitted drug dealer. The charge against her is aggravated assault of a public servant. If convicted, she could be sentenced to life in prison.
She was 19 at the time of the shooting.
According to her lawyer, Villa claimed she didn’t know when she shot Marshall that the armed men entering the home were police officers. She thought she was protecting herself, her 4-month-old baby and her boyfriend, Johnson said.
Once before, he told jurors, robbers pretending to be police officers had fired shots at her.
The trial is in its second day.
Johnson cited a memo that Marshall wrote two months before he was shot in which he complained of a lack of training for SWAT officers, who had recently had regular patrol duties added to their jobs.
Johnson said that change reduced the number of training hours from several thousand in January 2007 to 400 in September 2007.
Officers testified, however, that they were well-trained and that training had nothing to do with Marshall’s being shot.
And when Johnson suggested that the SWAT team members did not properly announce themselves during the raid, the officers disagreed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson, but that’s ridiculous,” testified Sr. Cpl. Larry Gordon, a member of the SWAT team who was there the night Marshall was shot. He said that calling out “Police” as raiding officers enter a home is “a given.”
Marshall was shot in the neck on Oct. 17, 2007, when Dallas police officers were assisting federal authorities in serving a warrant on Villa’s boyfriend, Clayton Sharpless. A year after the raid, Sharpless pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to launder money. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutor Andrea Handley told jurors in her opening statement that Villa knew the North Oak Cliff house was being raided by the police. Marshall was hit as he stood inside the house and tried to move a rug that was covering a bedroom window.
The prosecutor said the house was equipped with video surveillance cameras. The officers’ uniforms, she noted, had the word ‘POLICE’ written across the chest in white capital letters.
Handley said Villa slept with her baby in her bed and a loaded handgun under her pillow.
Prosecutors contend that Villa was involved in selling drugs with Sharpless. She also faces two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver it.
“You will see she is not a law-abiding citizen just minding her own business,” Handley said.
“The evidence will show she is an armed drug dealer.”
Johnson said prosecutors were wrongly portraying Villa as a “drug kingpin,” when the real ringleader was Sharpless.
He said that on the night Marshall was shot, Villa’s actions were “reasonable under the circumstances.” He said his client did not intend to harm Marshall and didn’t know he was a police officer.
Police on the raid used a “no-knock warrant,” meaning they didn’t have to announce themselves to those inside before entering. Exactly when the SWAT officers identified themselves as police remains a point of contention in the trial.
Marshall nearly died from his wound and needs cochlear implants to hear. He returned to work in a motorized wheelchair nearly two years after he was shot, then retired.
Copyright 2010 Dallas Morning News