Opinion ID: 3063811
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant Smith’s Evidence

Text: Smith called Alfonso Kennedy, a fourteen-year-old boy who lived in a house near the Church’s Chicken and witnessed the fight between Smith and Officer Henderson from his front porch, where he was sitting with his cousin Marino. Kennedy testified that after Officer Henderson pulled Smith off the bus, Smith “tried to get loose, then they ended up in the grass and they was on the ground fighting.” According to Kennedy, the two men “was hitting each other. Then the police officer whipped out his little stick and starting beating [Smith] in the head. . . . They was still going at it and then [Officer Henderson] finally got 11 [Smith] in handcuffs and then he started calling for back-up and then some more police officers came down.” Kennedy said he saw the whole thing and Smith never had anything in his hands. He stated that when the other police officers arrived one of them kicked Smith and another picked him up and dropped him. On cross-examination, Kennedy testified that the fight started because Smith was trying to get away from Officer Henderson. He testified that Smith swung at Officer Henderson one time, but did not hit him. At some point Officer Henderson fell in the grass. Kennedy’s grandmother Diane Kennedy also testified for Smith. She did not see the fight because she was inside when her grandson Marino told her to come look. The fight was over by the time Ms. Kennedy reached her porch. Ms. Kennedy testified that when the police officers arrived after the fight, they picked Smith up, dumped him down, and started kicking and hitting him with “something like a stick or iron or something.”