None booked yet in drug-deal death
Nobody has been booked in the Jan. 14 shooting death of accused 26-year-old drug dealer Robert Heard, but an investigation into the shooting is ongoing, Baton Rouge Police and District Attorney Hillar Moore III said.
However, the shooting death is still under investigation by police and Moore said the final decision whether to charge someone has not yet been made.
The lingering question is a matter of Louisiana law which will ultimately determine if an arrest is necessary.
Heard’s death has been called a justifiable homicide by police.
According to police accounts released so far, John Freeman, 26, 10488 Gerald Drive, called Heard Jan. 14 because he wanted to buy drugs.
Heard and two other men arrived at Freeman’s home at 1 p.m. to sell the drugs, police said.
Instead of selling the drugs, police said, the group decided to rob Freeman at gunpoint.
Police are not yet sure if Freeman actually fired any shots at the accused robbers, but a 16-year-old inside Freeman’s home at the time looked out a window and saw what was happening in the driveway, Baton Rouge Police spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely said.
The teen got a gun and started firing at the accused robbers, McKneely said.
Two of the three accused drug dealers were shot, including Heard who was killed, police said.
A second accused drug dealer was shot in the head, and McKneely said that man is expected to recover.
The third accused drug dealer ran away from the shooting scene and has not been caught yet, police said.
McKneely said Friday police are still waiting for
ballistic evidence from the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab.
The 16-year-old and Freeman were both questioned about the shootings but neither was taken into custody.
Police said Jan. 16 that Freeman and the 16-year-old would not be booked because they fired in self-defense.
On Friday, McKneely said the investigation was ongoing and called the situation “fluid.”
“But at this time it does not appear they will be booked,” McKneely said.
But Moore said Friday that the law and justifiable homicide is more complex than that.
“It’s complicated. I don’t know all the facts yet and it depends on who did what,” Moore said.
State law says a homicide is justifiable “when committed by a person lawfully inside a dwelling, a place of business, or a motor vehicle against a person who is attempting to make unlawful entry into the dwelling, place of business or motor vehicle or who has made an unlawful entry into the dwelling, place of business or motor vehicle and the person committing the homicide reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent entry or to compel the intruder to leave.”
But that doesn’t apply when the person committing the homicide is trying to buy or sell drugs, according to state law.
“So second-degree murder could be a possible charge here depending on what happened,” Moore said.
Moore said he doesn’t know if Freeman fired a gun.
According to police accounts, the 16-year-old who fired shots at the accused robbers was not involved in the drug deal.
“There you have to know what’s in his (the 16-year-old’s) head. I don’t know what the kid knew? I have to look at all of that,” Moore said.
Moore said regardless the final police determination, he can always bring the shooters before a grand jury.
Sam D’Aquilla, the district attorney for East and West Feliciana parishes, said he argued a murder case last year where the accused claimed self-defense even though he was involved in a drug deal at the time.
“The law is confusing,” D’Aquilla said.
D’Aquilla said the judge overruled him and allowed the defense attorneys to use the justifiable homicide defense in the case.
An East Feliciana Parish jury convicted Anthony Manzella of negligent homicide last year in the shooting death of a Clinton man, Jeral Waye Matthews, during a July 2009 drug deal that turned into a robbery attempt.
Manzella, of Hammond, was charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting, but the jury returned the lesser verdict on a 10-2 vote after deliberating about three hours.
Defense attorneys Gary Jordan and Ron Macaluso argued throughout the trial that Manzella, 20, was defending himself and his friend when he fatally shot Matthews, who was allegedly trying to rob them with an assault rifle.
“The question is going to be: Did he act in self-defense, did he act in defense of others, when he was being robbed with an AK-47?”
Jordan told the jury in the beginning of the Feb. 2011 trial.
“The reason we are here is the consequence of criminal activity” by people “who make their own laws,” D’Aquilla told the jury last year when the trial started.
D’Aquilla said that if the 16-year-old was not involved in the drug deal and he was trying to protect Freeman, a justifiable homicide would be the correct outcome based on the law.