RICHMOND, Va. -- Amari Pollard is on trial for murder for his alleged role in the deadly June 6 Graduation Day shooting outside the Altria Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Now, for the first time since the deadly June 6 shooting, new information was made public that shed light on other individuals who have been charged in connection to the shooting.
Pollard, 20, is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Huguenot High School graduate Shawn Jackson.
But Jackson was not the only casualty in the shootout that occurred shortly after the ceremony.
Seven people, including Jackson and his stepfather Renzo Smith, were shot outside the theater, police said. Smith also died, but the five other victims survived.
For the last eight months, I've been asking police who would be charged with shooting the other victims? But police and the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office declined to answer and maintained the "truth" would come out in court.
"This is something that's got to be cleared up throughout the trial," said CBS 6 legal analyst Todd Stone.
"This is a very unusual case, with so many people being shot and having more than one firearm," Stone said. "It can be a muddy mess for a prosecutor to work out, but it's important that the prosecutor lay this stuff out and explain it for the jury."
At the start of Pollard's trial, Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Colette McEachin instructed jurors to focus solely on what happened to Shawn Jackson— not what happened to anybody else who was there.
But the defense, which is arguing Pollard killed Jackson in self-defense, has drawn attention to a group of other young men who they claim threatened Pollard on the day of the shooting.
Attorneys said Jackson's friends Malachi Mann, Jamon Flowers, and Dominique Fowler all had guns on them the day of the shooting and made threats against Pollard.
Fowler and Flowers fired their weapons outside the Altria, attorneys said. So did Jackson's stepfather Renzo Smith.
In court earlier this week, the defense announced Fowler and Flowers had been charged with misdemeanor reckless handling of a firearm.
That was the first time we’d ever heard of any additional charges in the case.
Stone explained why he believes those details were not revealed until now.
"A prosecutor's duty isn't so much to release public information as it is to protect the trial," Stone said. "I think here, you've got a prosecutor who's balancing these interests of letting the public know what happened versus protecting the jury pool from being tainted and having evidence that might not come in at trial."
When asked about the lack of public acknowledgment of the additional arrests, Richmond Police said under normal circumstances they would’ve announced these criminal charges, without stating the juveniles' names.
"[But we] used discretion to not announce the juvenile detentions so as not to disrupt the court process that was about to begin," the Richmond Police statement read.
We still don’t know the exact circumstances surrounding those misdemeanor charges and whether they're directly connected to a shooting victim.
A Richmond Police detective who testified Wednesday said he had evidence that Fowler and Flowers shot at Pollard.
When asked by the defense why Fowler and Flowers weren't charged with attempted murder of Pollard, the detective said he believed they were acting in self-defense.
A ballistics expert testified Wednesday that the bullets found in Renzo Smith’s body could not be tied to Pollard’s gun.
As for Malachi Mann, court records showed he's facing gun and drug charges in Chesterfield County for an incident on June 7, 2023. However, a Chesterfield Police spokesperson said those charges are not connected to the graduation shooting that happened one day prior.
This is a developing story, so anyone with more information can email newstips@wtvr.com to send a tip.
