OAKLAND — “A pimp, a prostitute and a terrible plan to rob somebody,” said prosecutor Patrick Moriarty at the start of Wednesday’s murder trial of Lee Jackson IV.
Jackson, 29, is accused of killing Tony Smith, 66, of Oakland, on Sept. 14, 2016. Smith was found dead inside his car around 4:30 a.m. in the 1200 block of 35th Avenue, near International Boulevard.
Smith worked as a city guard at Oakland’s City Hall. After he was shot, he managed to drive off a bit, put his car in park in the middle of the road and turn on his hazard lights. It took more than 20 minutes before someone called 911 to report a man who appeared to be sleeping at the wheel, the prosecutor said.
When Oakland Fire Capt. George Freelen and other firefighters responded to the scene, they first honked their horn to try waking him up, he testified. But with no response or movement, they realized the man had been shot.
Moriarty said Jackson, along with an acquaintance and his prostitute, went up to Smith’s car to rob and shoot him. Then, the three ran back toward their car and fled. Smith had been in the area to solicit sex workers, Moriarty said, and the prosecution alleges that Jackson, who appeared to have picked him at random, wanted to rob him.
Moriarty said that Jackson was a pimp, and the woman he was with was his prostitute. The two were caught several days later in Davis, when police pulled them over and found Jackson, on parole at the time, with a handgun in his vehicle.
The gun, a Reuger 9mm, found with Jackson is the murder weapon, the prosecution said.
In video surveillance from the police car, when Jackson and the woman were handcuffed and sitting in the backseat, Jackson could be heard telling her, “The only way, you gotta take it,” to the woman. Moriarty said he was asking her to take the blame for the gun.
Jackson was arrested on suspicion of murder Nov. 3, 2016, when he went to the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland to drop off that woman for her court hearing; undercover FBI agents were waiting for them, Moriarty said.
Inside the car that he drove to the courthouse, hidden in a green bag, was another gun, a revolver pistol.
But Jackson’s defense attorney, Darryl Stallworth, talked to the jury about a lack of a good foundation in the prosecution’s case.
“I believe you’re going to find you have more questions than answers,” Stallworth said.
Moriarty said that police found a palm print on Smith’s car that matched Jackson’s print. But Stallworth said that this sort of information “looks good, but doesn’t tell you who the shooter is.”
Both the prosecution and the defense warned that the key witness, the woman with Jackson and who is a supposed sex worker, will change her story on the witness stand. Initially she identified Jackson as the shooter, but then later said another man was the shooter, someone named “Prince.” Stallworth said she claimed she did not really get a good look at the shooter, and her description of him does not match Jackson.
Smith’s son testified briefly on Wednesday morning, saying that he was with his father until he left that morning around 3 a.m. Outside the courtroom, in the hallway of the Rene C. Davidson courthouse, he sat down next to Jackson’s supporters who were present. He looked at them and said repeatedly, “I am the son, I am the son.” They did not respond.
“He had a big personality; he was a people person,” testified the victim’s son in court, Tony Smith Jr.
The trial continues Thursday before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Allan Hymer.