A man accused of killing two DeKalb County police officers says that he was defending himself against a pair of overzealous cops. And he doesn’t want the personal items he left at the scene of the shooting to be used as evidence.
In a hearing Tuesday for a motion to suppress evidence, William Woodard’s defense attorneys told DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gail Flake that the shooting resulted from an illegal arrest.
"You can’t start with a crime and work your way backwards to justify what police did,” defense attorney Bill Morrison said. “Did police have the right to approach the car" Woodard was in before the shooting "and – what witnesses described – ‘snatch’ him from the car?”
DeKalb prosecutors are seeking the death sentence for Woodard, 34, who is charged with two counts of murder in the Jan. 16, 2008 shooting deaths of officers Eric Barker and Ricky Bryant Jr.
Both officers were working off-duty jobs at the Glenwood Gardens Apartments near Decatur when police say they were shot and killed by Woodard. Barker was killed instantly, and Bryant later died of his wounds.
In the motion to suppress evidence, filed in January, defense attorneys allege that Barker bludgeoned Woodard while Bryant pulled out his service weapon.
“The defendant, as a passenger, was forcibly removed from the vehicle and viciously attacked by Officer Barker with his police baton while Officer Bryant appeared to draw his service weapon,” the motion reads. “The police took and seized the defendant’s eyeglasses and his Bible while attacking the defendant with no probable cause.”
One of the investigators called to the scene, then-DeKalb homicide Detective Patrick Bramlett, testified that Barker’s body was lying on top of his collapsed baton.
State’s witness Mario Westbrook, a longtime friend of Woodard, told the court his friend had been smoking marijuana, and the smell raised Barker’s attention when the officer walked by Woodard.
Westbrook said the officer followed Woodard to the car.
“Another officer approached, and they opened the door and grabbed him by the arm and led him out,” Westbrook said.
Woodard jerked as the officers frisked him, Westbrook said. A struggle began as the officers tried to wrestle Woodard to the ground until, Westbrook said, he heard gunfire.
“I saw Woodard on the ground shooting and the officers struggling to get away,” he said. “Their bodies fell. And Woodard stood over them and finished them off.”
Defense attorney Dwight Thomas challenged Westbrook’s story, pointing to the witness’s assertion that he was sitting in the middle of the back seat of the car.
"How did you see them on the ground from where you were?” Thomas asked. “You didn’t see who shot first, did you?”
Westbrook responded, “No.”
Defense witness Derrick Murchison told a different story from Westbrook.
Murchison said the two men visiting his apartment were drinking, not smoking marijuana, and characterized Barker, the officer Woodard encountered leading up to the shooting, as an overly aggressive cop prone to and harassing apartment complex residents.
“Barker came to the door and blinded us with the flashlight and told us to get off the porch or go to jail,” Murchison said, and gave a warning to his girlfriend’s nephew. “I told [William], ‘Be careful … you how he gets stupid.’”
DeKalb District Attorney Robert James said that even if Barker and Bryant were in the wrong approaching Woodard, he didn’t have the right to shoot them.
“No matter what the officers did, he stood over them and shot at them,” James said.
Morrison argued that even though Woodard was carrying a gun that night, the shooting was in self-defense.
“All of those issues … are negated if, in fact, the defendant is justified in doing what he did,” Morrison said.
Judge Flake said she will respond to the motion with a written opinion, but did not give a time frame.
The case, which has been stymied by frequent changes of defense attorneys, could come to trial as early as August.
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