Attorney: Mtula Payton did not fire shots that killed 3 bystanders in K Street massacre
Mtula Payton did not fire the shots that killed three of the victims of the deadly K Street mass shootings, his attorney argued Tuesday as testimony continued in the murder trial of Payton and Dandrae Martin in the April 2022 killings.
Payton attorney Reed Kingsbury on Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court pressed Sacramento police Det. Shaun McGovern on what Kingsbury called the “minutiae of detail” leading to the 2 a.m. shooting, April 3, 2022, that left six dead and 13 others wounded.
Attorneys Kingsbury and Linda Parisi, for Dandrae Martin, said the two men fired in self-defense after a spontaneous burst of gunfire. Sacramento County prosecutors said the men, along with Dandrae Martin’s brother, Smiley Martin, Harris, Turner, and Hoye, were gang rivals whose animosities erupted on downtown K Street.
Three of the victims — Yamile Martinez, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and, Melinda Davis, 57 — were killed in the first seconds of gunfire as the crowds that flooded K Street after nightclubs’ closing scrambled in terror.
Payton fired behind him to the south as he ran north on 10th Street. Davis was north of Payton’s gunfire when she was fatally struck, McGovern testified. Likewise, Payton’s shots along the crowded corner were not tied to Martinez’s and Alexander’s deaths, McGovern agreed.
Kingsbury, continuing the painstaking review of security camera footage that has marked the trial, said Sergio Harris, 38, was the first to open fire, fatally shooting Davazia Turner before Harris, himself, was killed. A third shooter, Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, was also shot dead, in what is considered to be the worst mass shooting in Sacramento history.
At trial earlier in the week, Harris’ cousin, Ike Harris, in a videotaped 2022 interview with McGovern, described his longstanding feud with some of those involved in the shooting.
Hoye one of the first to fire — and die — in the gunfire, was seen on security cameras at 10th and K streets firing a weapon. Dandrae and Smiley Martin also fired their weapons, video showed, before the two brothers fled, one in front of the other, east on K Street.
McGovern testified that Sacramento officers later recovered a Glock 19 handgun, which prosecutors allege was tossed by Smiley Martin from the scene.
Smiley Martin died in 2024 at Sacramento County Main Jail as he awaited trial in the shootings.
Testimony before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman resumed Tuesday afternoon.
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