RICHMOND, Va. -- CBS 6 obtained the FBI-compiled video evidence that showed the moments leading up to and following the fatal shooting of Huguenot High School graduate Shawn Jackson on June 6, 2023.
The video was played in a Richmond courtroom this week and led to shooter Amari Pollard entering a guilty plea in the middle of his murder trial.
From the beginning of the trial, Pollard's attorneys claimed Pollard was acting in self-defense.
They said Jackson's group of friends had threatened Pollard both before and on the day of the shooting.
The nearly 90-minute video showed Pollard just moments after the shooting in the Laurel Street parking deck immediately across from the theater and Monroe Park. There he repeatedly told Denise Smith, a VCU Security Ambassador, that he thought someone was "trying to kill" him, and that he was sorry.
In the video, he also admitted to Smith that he'd fired his gun.
He said the same thing to VCU Police Officer David Pulliam.
He also told Pulliam he wished he had never come to the graduation ceremony and that he "let it happen."
Despite the video and Pollard's testimony claiming Shawn Jackson said "I'm gonna crush you" and "made a motion to his graduation robe," as if he were going to pull out a firearm, the presiding Judge William Marchant made it clear to both the prosecution and the defense that the self-defense claim could not be weighed in determining the outcome of the trial.
That's because video surveillance from multiple cameras and angles showed a brief "scuffle" happening in Monroe Park across from the Altria, then almost immediately after, shows Pollard running with Jackson's stepfather Renzo Smith behind him.
The video showed Shawn Jackson in front of Pollard and to Pollard's right.
The video then showed Pollard moving around the crowd and shooting at Jackson, who looked to be ahead of him.
The video showed Jackson falling to the ground, while Pollard's arm appeared to be extended, indicating that he may have been firing shots as Jackson fell.
Pollard shot Jackson six times, with at least one of them being from behind, according to witness testimony from someone with a Medical Examiner's Office.
Jackson was unarmed at the time of the shooting. Multiple witnesses testified that they saw Jackson moving away from the initial scuffle and away from Pollard's direction.
The video then showed Smith and two juveniles, friends of Jackson's, firing in Pollard's direction.
Gunfire resulted in the death of Smith, though we still do not know who fired the fatal gunshots.
As part of the guilty plea, Pollard faces 25 years of active prison time.
"The defendant's callous and thoughtless actions in a public graduation, in a public space, in the middle of the afternoon is now the reason he is going to serve 25 years," Richmond Commonwealth Attorney Colette McEachin said after the guilty plea. "It's his actions and his actions alone."
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