“You say his
“Yeah, his left. He wedged his left shoulder against the door and then hung his face around to look out through the crack.” Russell held his arm up to mimic bracing a door. Then he moved his head slightly to the right without moving his shoulder, as if he was trying to show his face in the crack between the door and the door frame.
“Which hand did he use to turn the doorknob?”
“His right.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he couldn’t have turned it with his left and still barred the door,” Russell answered.
“You’re sure.”
“Absolutely. When we forced the door a millisecond after we saw the gun, his arm and shoulder were already blocking the door. If he’d been turning the doorknob, we would’a pushed right through the door with no resistance.”
“And you’ve done a lot of these, so you would know?”
“Absolutely,” Russell said without hesitation.
“You’re sure the gun was in his left hand?”
“Like I said.”
“In fact, it couldn’t have been in his right hand, correct?” Beckett picked up the gun from the prosecution table. “After all, this is a big gun. It’s kind of cumbersome. He couldn’t have held it with his right hand and turned the doorknob with that hand, could he?”
“No, not likely.”
“At least not without difficulty. . and not without you noticing.”
“We would’a noticed,” Russell agreed.
“So we’ve established that he couldn’t have been holding the gun in his right hand because he couldn’t have turned the doorknob, correct?”
“Right.”
“We’ve also established he was barring the door with his left shoulder and looking through the crack, correct?”
“Right.”
“And that means he couldn’t have worked the doorknob with his left hand, correct?”
“Right.”
“Which again means he had to be holding the gun in his left hand?”
Russell nodded. “Just like it says in my report.”
“And like you said before when I asked you which hand he used to hold the gun?”
“Right.”
“Then I’m confused, Sergeant. You remember explaining to me how you saw him hold the gun behind his back with his arm running the length of his body, correct?”
“Yeah,” Russell said cautiously.
“And you said Beaumont was standing behind the door like this, with the crack of the door being here to his front right,” Beckett said, demonstrating how Beaumont supposedly blocked the door while using his right hand to show where the door opening would have been. “Webb would have been standing over here to the left behind the door, and you would have been standing behind Officer Webb,” Beckett continued, pointing to where Webb and Russell would have stood. “Do you see the problem yet?”
Russell shrugged his shoulders.
“Look where the gun is, Sergeant. It’s behind Beaumont. .
Russell looked at Beckett and then Pierce.
“The District Attorney can’t help you, Sergeant,” Beckett said to emphasize Russell’s inability to answer the question. “We’re waiting, Sergeant. How could you see the gun when it was hidden by the door?”
“I could’a made a mistake. He might’a been holding it in his right hand.” Russell’s eyes darted back and forth between Beckett and Pierce.
“Sergeant, you and I just established a moment ago that there was no way Beaumont could have held the gun in his right hand and still turned the doorknob, didn’t we?”
“I could’a been wrong about that.”
Beckett looked at the jury. “That’s interesting.” He turned back to Russell. “Sergeant, if he was standing with his left shoulder barring the door, where would hisright shoulder be?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a simple question. Wouldn’t his right shoulder be back behind the door as well?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“That would have been hidden from your view too, wouldn’t it?”
Russell’s mouth went dry. “I guess.”
“So whether he held the gun behind him on his left side or his right side, you couldn’t have seen it either way could you? The door blocked your view.”
Russell looked at Pierce again, but Pierce was looking at his notes. “I might’a been mistaken. He might’a flashed the gun at us through the door crack. These things are really stressful and it’s been a long time, so I might’a misremembered.”
“You were very certain a few minutes ago when you said, ‘He was holding it down behind him with his arm running down the length of his body slightly behind him, with the barrel of the firearm pointed down behind him,’” Beckett read from his notes. “I believe you added that the barrel was pointed behind his right leg. You were very sure of that point.”
“Yeah, but I think I just misremembered that. It’s been a long time and I’ve had a lot of arrests since then.”
“Then why did you specifically mention on the arrest report that Beaumont held the gun ‘in his left hand, with his arm hanging down his side, slightly behind him’?” This time Beckett read from the police report.
Russell didn’t answer.
“Sergeant, I have here the police report. You signed this, correct?” Beckett handed a copy of the report to Russell.
“Yeah.”
“Did you or did you not state in your official report that Beaumont held the gun in his left hand, behind him?” Beckett asked harshly.
“I was mistaken.”
“You were mistaken?!” Beckett mocked him.
“Yeah, it happens.”
“A moment ago, you blamed the passage of time for your supposed mistake from when you testified earlier. But now it turns out you made the same mistake on the initial arrest report? When did you write this report?” Beckett held up the report for the jury to see.
“The day of the arrest.”
“
“Like I said, it happens,” Russell said cynically. “I’m not perfect.”
“Did Officer Webb also sign this report?”
“Yeah.”
“In fact, he made his own statement, right?”
Russell mumbled an agreement.
“Why don’t you read his statement to the jury? Start with ‘suspect was standing.’”
Russell scanned the report before reading it aloud. “‘Suspect was standing with a firearm in his left hand, with his hand down behind his rear, with the barrel pointed away from his body behind him.’”
“Somehow Webb made the same mistake you did, didn’t he?”
