DENVER (AP) -A man accused of firing the shots that killed Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams lived in a gang culture where an insult following a confrontation in a nightclub proved to be enough to send him into a murderous rage, prosecutors said Tuesday.
“He wouldn’t take a fist fight he can’t win, but he’d take a gun fight he can’t lose,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Bruce Levin said of Willie Clark during closing statements in the 26-year-old’s trial.
Clark faces 21 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault in the New Year’s Day 2007 shooting. Two others were injured in the shooting that killed Williams, a rising star in the NFL in late 2006. Jurors were to begin deliberations Wednesday morning.
ark not being in a white SUV from which more than a dozen gunshots were fired into the rented Hummer limousine carrying Williams and other football players.
“This is what this is about: Willie Clark is a scapegoat,” Hutt told jurors, pointing to deals cut by prosecutors that reduced prison sentences for five witnesses by a total of 188 years in exchange for testimony.
Hutt said the prosecution’s star witness, Daniel “Ponytail” Harris, had faced a life sentence for a drug charge but will be released within two years. Harris testified that he saw Clark fire the shots.
Prosecutors say Williams and the others in the limousine had just left a nightclub where they got into an altercation with a group that included Clark, a suspected gang member.
The altercation started when a member of Williams’ group sprayed champagne on New Year’s partiers, prosecutors said.
But Chief Deputy District Attorney Timothy Twining said testimony during the trial showed Clark was out for a fight, walking around a house earlier that night in a bulletproof vest, waving a gun, then confronting Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall outside a nightclub as the Broncos’ entourage was waved through the VIP entrance.
“We street. … We got money, too,” Twining quoted Clark as telling Marshall outside the club. “The thing about the champagne? It’s a so what.”
the club after closing time, Marshall went up Clark with his hands up and may have hit Clark on the head, sending Clark into a murderous rage, Twining said.
“It was this man, who indiscriminately, with universal maliciousness … took it upon himself to unload his .40-caliber handgun into that limousine full of innocent people,” Twining said of Clark.
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