Shooting details revealed in former officer's case

Murder trial begins for former county homeland security official

Washington, 46, a retired corporal in the Prince George’s County Police Department, has been charged with second-degree murder, assault, attempted murder and other charges for shooting Robert White, 37, and Brandon Clark, 22, after an argument over a scratched bedroom set that evening. The jury trial began Wednesday and is expected to last three days.

Clark died at a hospital nine days after the shooting without making a statement to investigators. White survived the shooting and is the prosecution’s key witness.

‘‘[White] kept saying, ‘I’m having trouble breathing. I’m leaving this place,’ ” said Lt. Joshua Carlson, an Accokeek Volunteer Fire Department paramedic who treated deliveryman Robert White after he was shot in the stomach and knee by Washington.

Carlson testified that as he treated White, the deliveryman told him that the shooting happened after a dispute about the bedroom set they were exchanging for Washington that night.

‘‘He didn’t give me any details, but he did say, and forgive my language, ‘All over some [expletive] rails,’” Carlson told the jury.

Lawyers for Washington claim he pulled out his police-issued handgun and shot the two deliverymen in self-defense after they assaulted him. White has said that Washington was confrontational from the moment they arrived and that he and Clark were shot multiple times as they were leaving the house.

Defense lawyers said that White’s account cannot be trusted.

‘‘We are here because Robert White has a different version than Mr. Washington,” attorney Vincent Cohen Jr. told the jury. ‘‘And he has different versions. ‘‘

Cohen said he plans to challenge White’s credibility by asking about his criminal record of burglary and larceny, a positive drug test he had for cocaine when he was treated at a hospital the night of the shooting, and his recent filing of a civil lawsuit against Washington and the county seeking $400 million.

‘‘He knows if he can get Keith Washington convicted, he will receive an exponentially greater reward,” Cohen said, referring to the potential monetary gains from the civil lawsuit.

Cohen also said that Washington was treated on the scene for a bruise to the back of his head and a cut lip, proving that the two men assaulted him.

Marilynn Clark, Brandon Clark’s mother, was the first to testify in the trial and said her son was tall and spoke with a stutter when anxious.

She was among 50 family members, observers and reporters who attended the trial, which has attracted regional attention because of the participants.

In addition to his county police job, Washington served as deputy director of the county Homeland Security office for two years and also ran unsuccessfully for County Council just a few months before the shooting.

Washington faces another trial next month on assault charges. In that incident, he allegedly held a real estate appraiser at gunpoint after the man knocked on his front door in April. After the April incident, county officials removed Washington from his post of deputy director for homeland security. He retired from the force on an undisclosed disability in the fall.

The prosecution had previously attempted to get worker’s compensation records for Washington from the 1990s and the upcoming assault trial included in the trial to demonstrate Washington’s behavior. According to the worker’s compensation records, Washington had previously been diagnosed with depression; post-traumatic stress disorder; paranoid state and adjustment disorder, a condition caused when stress triggers short-term depression and anxiety.

Judge Michael P. Whalen dismissed the motions. In addition, police brutality complaints filed against Washington in the late 1990s were deemed inadmissible.

The 12-member jury and four alternatives were selected from 150 potential jurors. Eight of the jurors are women and four are men. Ten of the panel members are black, with one white man and one Hispanic woman also serving.

Nearly all the potential jurors stood up Monday when Whalen asked if they had heard or read about Washington. The judge and lawyers spent 10 hours Monday and Tuesday trying to find out how much potential jurors knew and whether it could sway the case.

‘’I know this is a deliberate process,” Whalen told the crowded courtroom on Monday. ‘’But it’s absolutely necessary to carry this out with strict adherence.”

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.