The same day a 14-year-old Lawrence boy was killed, his alleged shooter had been using social media to send messages full of racial slurs and insinuating violence, according to testimony.
Prosecutors presented Snapchat records Monday during a preliminary hearing for Derrick Reed, 18, who is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting and killing Kamarjay Shaw, 14, on March 18.
According to previous testimony, Kamarjay and four teen boys around 5 p.m. that Saturday were at the apartment of a teen female friend and her sister, just around the corner from Reed’s home. Another teen girl called one of the boys via Snapchat audio and told him to come outside because Reed wanted to fight him, according to testimony.
The group went outside, assuming it was going to be a one-on-one fist fight between Reed and Kamarjay or one of the other boys. The boys testified that they were trying to get Reed to come out to the street to fight, but Reed refused, instead trying to get the other boys to come into the house or backyard, which they refused to do. The boys were heading back to their friend’s apartment when they saw Reed come out of the house with a gun, they testified. There were two gunshots, and Kamarjay was hit. (Read more from the hearing in this article.)
Douglas County District Court Judge Sally Pokorny has previously ruled that Reed would not be immune from prosecution for the shooting, finding that the evidence did not show that Reed fired a gun because he was in imminent danger. She also ruled that Reed would be tried as an adult, though he was 17 at the time of the shooting.
Pokorny on Monday denied the defense’s motion to suppress the Snapchat evidence police obtained with search warrants.
Defense attorney Mark Hartman argued the warrants lacked sufficient probable cause that the Snapchat account attributed to Reed did in fact belong to him. But Pokorny said the totality of the circumstances and common sense supported probable cause, and there was also sufficient evidence tied to the account that would help solve this crime.
Lawrence police Detective Kim Nicholson testified that she reviewed the contents of Reed’s Snapchat return, which included messages, photos, subscribers, friends lists and more. Nicholson said she viewed photos in the account of Reed and a girl who she understood to be his girlfriend.
Snapchat messages show a conversation between the account law enforcement linked to Reed and another person the morning of the shooting. In two messages at approximately 8:44 a.m. March 18, Reed said, “But we (ain’t) got number to be fighting” followed by “So bout time to shoot shit fr (for real)”, the records show. In another message, he said he was “Really saving to get a pole now”. Nicholson testified that she understands “pole” to be a slang term for “pistol.”
Another message from that morning said “ima let dem be till (they) try sum funny shit then n—-s are dead fr”, and another, “I see a hole lotta dead n—-s in my eyes (they) trynna f— wit me an mines”.
Nicholson testified, as she had during hearings on Reed’s motion for immunity, that she measured and believed Kamarjay was at least 190 feet — nearly two-thirds of a football field — away from Reed when he was shot.
Hartman asked Nicholson how the investigation showed that Reed was intending to kill someone by firing a gun from so far away. He said it was a long shot, and asked Nicholson whether she had any reason to believe Reed was a sharpshooter. She said no.
“Your client fired a firearm into a group of people running away with their backs to them,” Nicholson said. “I don’t see how you can say that that wasn’t intentional, wanting to kill somebody.”
Additional evidence
Nicholson testified that Hartman on the afternoon of March 20 notified her of a location where the gun may have been stashed. She went out near 1100 E. 12th St., and when she searched in a group of six to seven bushes, she found a 9 mm pistol with an extended magazine. She collected the gun, and the department sent it off to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for testing.
Other items Nicholson said were sent to KBI included two shell casings, gunshot residue tests from Reed’s hands and another person’s hands, gunshot residue tests from the car Reed drove following the shooting, DNA swabs from the pistol, and a bullet fragment recovered from Kamarjay’s body.
A KBI expert testified about the basics of how gunshot residue testing works. The ballistics testing results were not shared during Monday’s hearing, though.
The preliminary hearing is expected to wrap after Hartman calls LaTouche Shaw, Kamarjay’s father, to testify.
Hartman told Pokorny that he’d received information from prosecutors that LaTouche had said witnesses during an earlier motions hearing had afterward recanted their testimony that Reed was the shooter; however, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum said LaTouche had later recanted that statement.
Once Pokorny has heard the rest of the evidence, she will determine whether there is probable cause to bind Reed over for trial on his charge of premeditated first-degree murder.
Ongoing tensions
Pokorny had closed the courtroom to the public during previous hearings for the case and livestreamed the hearings over YouTube after conflicts between supporters of Reed and supporters of Kamarjay. On Monday, the courtroom was open but under strict rules, namely that everyone be completely silent.
The judge did not have to have anyone removed from the courtroom Monday, though several folks opted to leave and watch the hearing on YouTube after learning that they would not be able to reenter until the afternoon if they left during a brief recess in the morning.
After the hearing wrapped, however, there was a conflict in the parking lot. Dozens of law enforcement officers ran outside from the courtroom hallway.
Lt. Chris Johnston of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the altercation was verbal only, and no one was arrested or detained.
“We were able to intervene before things escalated,” he said via email.
The hearing is set to resume at 3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1. As of the time court recessed on Monday, the plan was to hold the conclusion of the hearing in person with the same set of rules, as well as livestreamed on YouTube.
All arrestees and defendants in criminal cases should be presumed not guilty unless and until they are convicted.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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