By Catherine Wilson, The Associated Press
Miami (AP) -- Jury selection is set to start Monday in the case of a SWAT officer accused of covering up a toy gun allegedly planted after he shot a suicidal man to death in the fifth Miami police corruption trial in less than two years.
More than an hour after the SWAT team arrived, Jesse Runnels was shot twice in the cheek as he stood at his kitchen sink in 1999. A toy gun was found outside the kitchen window, but some police witnesses say it wasn’t there right after the shooting.
Officer Alex Macias is charged with lying twice to investigators a day after firing the fatal rounds from his department-issue machine gun in a three-shot burst of gunfire that lasted a fraction of a second.
Macias said Runnels was holding a gun when he rushed toward the window and stuck his head and right hand outside. Macias also recalled telling another officer “something about a gun” before firing. He could face up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice.
His defense maintains Runnels was holding the toy gun out the window when he was shot. Prosecutors say he was holding a cellular phone, which had blood on it when it landed in the sink.
Prosecutors have not talked outside court about the series of police trials other than to express approval of the convictions so far.
Defense attorney William Matthewman has accused prosecutors of trying to railroad his client and maintains he will be cleared.
Macias was acquitted of cover-up charges a year ago in a different SWAT killing. This is the fifth time police officers have faced federal prosecutors over so-called “throwdown” guns and a beating since October 2002. So far, nine officers have been convicted or pleaded guilty, and three have been acquitted.
Both sides have focused on analyzing the evidence by offering conflicting interpretations of the crime scene. Runnels’ blood was on the toy gun, but his fingerprints were not found on the cell phone.
The defense is relying on a reconstruction expert and others to put the toy gun, which resembled a 9mm handgun, in Runnels’ hand.
Supporting the idea of a plant, a prosecution witness is ready to testify that something was wiped back and forth in Runnels’ blood on the kitchen floor. But a defense pathologist believes Runnels could have smeared his own blood while sliding to the floor.
It will be the second federal trial for Macias, who was tried last year with a group of 11 officers in four questionable police shootings. Macias was tied to only one -- a 123-shot volley that killed an elderly drug suspect as his 14-year-old granddaughter crouched feet away in their apartment. Two other officers were acquitted with him and are back on the force.
In March, a civil jury in state court awarded $4,300 to a man who claimed he was beaten and falsely arrested by Macias after mouthing off at officers outside a University of Miami football game in 2000.