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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 13-CF-814

JARRELL A. GAYDEN, APPELLANT,

V.

UNITED STATES, APPELLEE.

Appeal from the Superior Court 

of the District of Columbia

(CF2-15105-12)

(Hon. John McCabe, Trial Judge)

(Submitted October 10, 2014 Decided October 29, 2014)* 

 

George E. Rickman was on the brief for appellant.

Ronald C. Machen Jr., United States Attorney, Elizabeth Trosman,

Chrisellen R. Kolb, Tejpal Chawla, and Stephen F. Rickard, Assistant United 

States Attorneys, were on the brief for appellee.

Before GLICKMAN and BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Associate Judges, and REID, 

 

*

 The decision in this case was originally issued as an unpublished 

Memorandum Opinion and Judgment. It is now being published upon the court’s 

grant of appellant’s motion to publish. The official citation to Gray v. United 

States has been added, as well as a footnote which discusses Lewis v. United 

States, a case cited in Gray. Finally, a clause has been added at the end of the 

opinion to make it clear that on remand the trial court should enter judgment of 

acquittal as to the APO offense.
2

Senior Judge.

REID, Senior Judge: After a bench trial, appellant, Jarrell A. Gayden, was 

convicted of assault on a police officer (APO), and attempted threats.

1

For the 

reasons stated below, we affirm in part and reverse in part.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

The government presented the testimony of MPD Officer Arthur Kimball

who stated that he was conducting his regular patrol on August 28, 2012, in the 

4400 block of Ponds Street in the Northeast quadrant of the District of Columbia, 

when he saw Mr. Gayden standing in the alley between Ponds and Quarles Streets. 

Due to several complaints about drug activity in that alley, he approached Mr. 

Gayden and told him that “he needed to move along” and “not to loiter in [that] 

area.” Mr. Gayden walked away and began cursing at the officer. As Officer 

Kimball followed Mr. Gayden out of the alley, he called for additional police 

assistance because he was working without a partner; Mr. Gayden “was being loud 

 

1

The applicable code provisions are: D.C. Code § 22-405 (b) (2012 Repl.) 

(APO), and D.C. Code §§ 22-407, -1803 (attempted threats). The trial court 

sentenced Mr. Gayden under the Youth Rehabilitation Act to concurrent terms of 

180 days of incarceration on each offense, and an assessment of $100.00 for the 

Victims of Violent Crime Compensation Fund.
3

and boisterous,” and several people were in the area “who were getting a little riled 

up.” He also heard Mr. Gayden say, “Are you calling for back-up, I would if I 

were you before what happen[ed] to your partner happens to you[;] you can get 

hit.”2 Officer Kimball explained that based on his experience and knowledge of 

the community, “get hit” referred to someone getting murdered. In light of Mr. 

Gayden’s statement, Officer Kimball believed that Mr. Gayden was threatening to 

take his life.

Upon the arrival of five additional officers, Mr. Gayden was arrested for the 

alleged threat made against Officer Kimball. Mr. Gayden did not resist when 

Officer Kimball and another officer placed him in handcuffs. At that point, Mr. 

Gayden’s mother appeared in the alley “with at least 20 to 30 other individuals . . ., 

started screaming obscenities and yelling.” According to Officer Kimball, Mr. 

Gayden “continually tried to pull away from [the officers] and was inciting the 

crowd, telling, screaming, get off me, get them off me, and other obscenities.” 

 

2 On January 26, 2012, Officer Kimball and his former partner, Officer 

Robinson, attempted a stop of Mr. Gayden and his brother, Kelsey Pixley, in that 

same alley; they were standing near a dumpster known to be a “stash spot for 

narcotics.” The attempted stop led to a foot chase of Mr. Pixley by Officer 

Robinson and ultimately resulted with Mr. Pixley on top of Officer Robinson 

pointing two guns to his head. When Mr. Pixley took flight, Officer Robinson shot 

him in the leg. Mr. Pixley entered a guilty plea to the offense, and was 

incarcerated at the time of Mr. Gayden’s trial. 
4

Officer Kimball put his hand on Mr. Gayden’s bicep. Mr. Gayden “was 

continually trying to pull away from [the officers], struggling, shrugging his 

shoulders . . ., screaming, . . . just screaming at the crowd.” Mr. Gayden said 

“[s]omething to the effect of, f**k the police, f**k you, Kimball, he’s always 

f**k**g harassing me, I didn’t do s**t.” In response to the prosecutor’s question 

about what the crowd was doing, Officer Kimball declared, “They were getting 

increasingly agitated. His mother was . . . screaming at us. There were several 

other younger females who were screaming at us, some males in the area who were 

yelling, again, just cursing at us, telling us we were doing too much, . . . we’re 

f**k*d up, things like that.” The officers placed Mr. Gayden on the ground. 

Shortly afterwards, a transportation vehicle arrived and Mr. Gayden was taken to 

the police station.

3

 

The trial court credited Officer Kimball’s testimony that when he was 

 

3 Mr. Gayden testified on his own behalf and also presented testimony from 

Ms. Dickey Nelson, his mother’s friend and neighbor, and Yolanda Gayden, his 

mother. Ms. Nelson stated that after the police handcuffed Mr. Gayden, the police 

were “pushing him” and Mr. Gayden was “wiggling his body” or “twisting his 

body sort of at the hips” and “moving . . . [his] shoulders back and forth.” Mr. 

Gayden testified that when Officer Kimball approached him he was sitting in the 

alley by his house and the basketball court. He walked away from the officer but 

Officer Kimball grabbed him. He denied making a statement about his brother and 

Officer Kimball’s partner, or saying anything to the crowd. He claimed that 

Officer Kimball pushed him into another officer, pushed his shoulder, and he (Mr. 

Gayden) “turned back and hit the officer.” 
5

calling for backup, Mr. Gayden said to him, “are you calling for backup, I would if 

I were you, [before] what happened to your partner happens to you, you can get 

hit.” The court determined that Officer Kimball’s interpretation of Mr. Gayden’s 

words about the incident between Mr. Gayden’s brother and Officer Kimball’s 

partner was reasonable. Consequently the trial court found Mr. Gayden guilty of 

attempted threats. 

With respect to the APO charge, the trial court credited the testimony of 

Officer Kimball as to what Mr. Gayden was doing and saying and what the crowd 

was saying. The court declared that “there was a closer call on the assault of a 

police officer count because the testimony was kind of limited to pulling away with 

his arms while being held by Officer Kimball.” The court recognized that “just 

speech is generally not considered an assault on a police officer.” Nevertheless, 

the court declared, “certainly, the speech can be considered in determining whether 

all of the actions constitute resisting or intimidating an officer.” Thus, the court 

concluded, 

even the little bit of sort of wiggling and pulling away 

somewhat from Officer Kimball, who had his ... hand ...

on Mr. Gayden’s bicep, and that sort of small amount of 

wiggling that was described by Officer Kimball and Ms. 

Nelson, combined with the cursing and loudly screaming 

at the crowd and the police officers, in the [c]ourt’s view, 

does constitute assault on a police officer. 
6

Therefore, the trial court found Mr. Gayden guilty of the APO charge. 

ANALYSIS

Mr. Gayden raises sufficiency of the evidence claims for both offenses. He 

argues that his APO conviction was based on mere speech and “conduct that was 

the result of justifiable cause.” He claims that the trial court erroneously

combined these two insufficient theories, which do not meet the standard of proof

beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Gayden also argues that his attempted threats 

conviction was based on conditional language, and lacked any indication that he 

actually planned to harm Officer Kimball. 

“In a sufficiency challenge we view the evidence in the light most favorable 

to the government, draw all reasonable inferences in the government’s favor, and 

defer to the factfinder’s credibility determinations.” Ruffin v. United States, 76 

A.3d 845, 849 (D.C. 2013) (quoting In re J.S., 19 A.3d 328, 330 (D.C. 2011)).

“Where the fact-finder is a trial judge, we will not reverse a conviction unless ‘an 

appellant has established that the trial court’s factual findings are plainly wrong 
7

or without evidence to support them.”’ Jones v. United States, 16 A.3d 966, 970 

(D.C. 2011) (quoting In re D.T., 977 A.2d 346, 356 (D.C. 2009)).

APO Claim

The government was required to prove that Mr. Gayden’s conduct violated

D.C. Code § 22-405 (b), which states, in part, that “[w]hoever without justifiable 

and excusable cause, . . . assaults, . . . resists, . . . impedes, . . . opposes, . . . 

intimidates a law enforcement officer . . . while [he] is engaged in the performance 

of his . . . official duties shall be guilty of ” APO. See Dickens v. United States, 19 

A.3d 321, 323 (D.C. 2011) (“The relevant language in D.C. Code § 22-405 (b) 

authorizes imprisonment for someone who ‘assaults, resists, opposes, intimidates, 

or interferes with a law enforcement officer.’”). In this case, the trial court based 

its finding of an APO violation on the theory that Mr. Gayden both “resisted” and 

“intimidated” Officer Kimball.

“The District’s APO statute does not criminalize every refusal to submit to a 

police officer or every prevention or hindrance of an officer in his duties.” Ruffin, 

supra, 76 A.3d at 850 (quoting In re J.S., 19 A.3d 328, 331 (D.C. 2011)). “To 

constitute ‘resisting’ a police officer, a person’s conduct must go beyond speech 
8

and mere passive resistance or avoidance, and cross the line into active 

confrontation, obstruction or other action directed against an officer’s performance 

in the line of duty by actively interposing some obstacle that precluded the officer 

from questioning him or attempting to arrest him.” Id. (citation and internal 

quotation marks omitted)). “Intimidation, by definition, generates fear or employs 

various forms of coercion short of physical force or injury.” Dickens, supra, 19 

A.3d at 324 (footnote omitted). To determine whether a defendant has intimidated 

an officer within the meaning of D.C. Code § 22-405 (b), we ask whether “any 

police officer in [the officer’s] situation would have reasonably been in fear of –

and thus intimidated by” – some obstacle that prevented the officer from 

performing his duties. Id. at 325.

In light of our case law we are constrained to reverse Mr. Gayden’s APO 

conviction. We note at the outset that the trial court believed the APO finding was 

a close call because “there wasn’t any testimony about a huge amount of physical 

movement by Mr. Gayden,” and “the testimony was kind of limited to pulling 

away with his arms while being held by Officer Kimball.” Nevertheless, the trial 

judge declared, 

even the little bit of sort of wiggling and pulling away 

somewhat from Officer Kimball, who had ... his hand ...

on Mr. Gayden’s bicep, and that sort of small amount of 
9

wiggling that was described by Officer Kimball and Ms.

Nelson, combined with the cursing and loudly screaming 

at the crowd and at the police officers, . . . does constitute 

assault on a police officer. 

We conclude that “the little bit of sort of wiggling and pulling away” after Mr. 

Gayden had already been restrained in handcuffs without any resistance was 

insufficient to constitute “resisting” under the APO statute. Furthermore, under the 

circumstances of this case, the combination of the “little bit of . . . wiggling and 

pulling away” combined with the words spoken by Mr. Gayden and the onlookers, 

was insufficient, in our view, to establish intimidation. 

This case is unlike Dickens, supra, where appellant yelled to his pit bull,

“get them, get him,” and the pit bull bit the officer. There we concluded that 

appellant’s words were designed “to interpose the obstacle of his pit bull using an 

attack command.” 19 A.3d at 323. We further said appellant was guilty of APO 

because he intimidated the officer, that is, “any police officer in [the officer’s] 

situation would have reasonably been in fear of – and thus intimidated by – a pit 

bull attack from appellant’s words of incitement.” Id. at 325. But here, at the time 

Mr. Gayden’s mother and 20 to 30 other individuals appeared on the scene, five 

additional officers had arrived to assist Officer Kimball and Mr. Gayden had been 

placed in handcuffs, without a struggle. The government’s theory, accepted by the
10

trial court, was that Mr. Gayden used the crowd as an obstacle and to aid Mr. 

Gayden’s attempt to resist and to get away from the custody of the officers. 

Although Mr. Gayden yelled to the crowd, “get off me, get them off me,” and 

cursed the police, and Officer Kimball testified that Mr. Gayden’s mother, several 

younger females, and some males were yelling and cursing, the officer did not 

indicate that the crowd had moved in any way in the direction of the officers, and 

we cannot say that, under the totality of the circumstances, the crowd was incited 

by Mr. Gayden to try to aid him in becoming free from custody; nor can we say 

that any police officer in Officer Kimball’s situation (especially with the presence 

of five additional officers and with no indication of crowd movement toward the 

officers) would have reasonably been in fear of the persons who had gathered, or 

would have been intimidated by the possibility of a crowd attack due to Mr. 

Gayden’s words. 

In short, on this record we are unable to say that Mr. Gayden’s conduct went 

“beyond speech and mere passive resistance or avoidance and cross[ed] the line 

into active confrontation” or “active[] interposing [of] some obstacle” that 

precluded Officer Kimball from, or “thwart[ed]” him in performing his duties; nor 

can we conclude under the circumstances of this case, that the government’s proof 

established Mr. Gayden’s resistance or intimidation of Officer Kimball in the 
11

performance of his official duties. Ruffin, supra, 76 A.3d at 850; Dickens, supra, 

19 A.3d at 324-25; see also Coghill v. United States, 982 A.2d 802, 806 (D.C. 

2009) (citing In re C.L.D., 739 A.2d 353, 357-58 (D.C. 1999)). Consequently, we 

reverse Mr. Gayden’s APO conviction. 

Attempted Threats

We are satisfied that the government’s proof was sufficient to prove Mr. 

Gayden guilty under the attempted threats statutes. He contends that the statement, 

“are you calling for back-up, I would if I were you before what happens to your 

partner happens to you, you can get hit” only expressed a possible or conditional 

outcome.

Under the threats to do bodily harm statute, the government must prove the 

following elements beyond a reasonable doubt: “that the defendant uttered the 

words to another person; that the words were of such a nature as to convey fear of 

serious bodily harm or injury to the ordinary hearer; that the defendant intended to 

utter the words which constitute the threat.” Carrell v. United States, 80 A.3d 163, 

167 (D.C. 2013) (citing Campbell v. United States, 450 A.2d 428, 431 n.5 (D.C. 

1982)). Here, Mr. Gayden’s words were explicit, (a) invoking a prior incident in 
12

which his brother held Officer Kimball’s partner on the ground while his brother 

pointed two guns toward the partner’s head, and (b) telling Officer Kimball that 

what happened to his partner in that incident could happen to him – meaning that 

he “could get hit,” that is, murdered; and there was no evidence that he was joking 

when he uttered the words. Applying the legal principle governing threats to do 

bodily harm, there is no doubt that Mr. Gayden uttered the words attributed to him 

and the trial court credited Officer Kimball’s testimony. Nor is there any doubt on 

this record that Mr. Gayden’s words were of such a nature as to convey fear of 

bodily harm to the ordinary hearer, and that Mr. Gayden intended to utter the 

words that constituted the threat to Officer Kimball. Hence, we agree with the trial 

court’s finding that Mr. Gayden was guilty of a violation of the attempted threats 

statutes, based on Officer Kimball’s credited testimony and the context in which 

Mr. Gayden’s statement was made, including the prior interaction between Mr. 

Gayden, Officer Kimball, and Officer Robinson. See Jenkins v. United States, 902 

A.2d 79, 86-87 (D.C. 2006) (the words “open the door” and “come out” were 

sufficient to sustain attempted threats conviction in the context of a prior threat to 

shoot); see also Carrell, supra, 80 A.3d at 164, 166, 171 (appellant properly 

convicted of attempted threats when he placed both hands around the victim’s 

throat and yelled, “I could kill you right now, I could f**k**g kill you.”); Gray v. 

United States, 100 A.3d 129, 136-137 (D.C. 2014) (“There was no evidence that 
13

appellant was joking” when he said “‘I’m going to kill you,’ and made ‘a gun 

motion’ with his fingers.”).4

Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm Mr. Gayden’s conviction 

on the attempted threats offense. However, we reverse his conviction on the APO 

charge and remand the case, with instructions to enter judgment of acquittal as to 

the APO charge and to resentence appellant, as necessary.

So ordered.

 

4

In Lewis v. United States, 95 A.3d 1289 (D.C. 2014), we reversed a 

misdemeanor attempted threats to do bodily harm conviction. There, after 

appellant had been arrested and placed in handcuffs, he told a police officer that he 

“was lucky that [appellant] didn’t get him when [appellant] had his gun on him, 

because he would have blown [his] g**d***ned head off.” This court declared 

that the context of appellant’s statement – made after arrest and handcuffing –

revealed that appellant “no longer posed a physical threat” to the police officers. 

Id. at 1291. Here, however, Mr. Gayden made his statement to the police officer 

prior to arrest and handcuffing, and his words were much more specific and 

threatening in context since Mr. Gayden referenced his brother who, on a prior 

occasion, had held Officer Kimball’s partner on the ground while pointing two 

guns toward the partner’s head.