Judge convicts man shot by police
A Richmond man who was shot three times by a plainclothes city police officer working undercover in Chesterfield County was convicted yesterday of brandishing a firearm -- actually, a cigarette lighter that resembled a .25-caliber pistol.
After hearing testimony from the officer and the man he shot, Chesterfield General District Court Judge Keith Hurley found Mark A. Weaver, 43, guilty of brandishing a firearm in the Aug. 2 confrontation in the 3100 block of Dulwich Drive, about a block outside the city limits.
The judge sentenced Weaver, a felon, to 12 months in jail but suspended the term.
"I think he's been punished enough," defense attorney T. Noel Brooks told the judge, referring to the three gunshot wounds that nearly cost Weaver his life.
Prosecutor Melissa Hoy argued for active jail time because of the fear she said Weaver induced by pointing the gunlike lighter directly at the officer.
Richmond Detective Paul R. Jenkins, who was working with the city's anti-gang unit that night, testified that Weaver walked up to his unmarked cruiser from behind and stuck his head inside the driver's side window in a hostile manner.
He said Weaver then raised his right hand holding an object that looked like a weapon and shouted, "Are you 5-0? Are you 5-0?" a slang term for police. Jenkins said he then announced, "I'm police! I'm police! I'm police!" before pulling his service pistol, resting in his lap, and firing three times.
"I thought he had a gun and was going to kill me," Jenkins testified. He immediately called for an ambulance.
Weaver told a different story. He said he approached the car after his former girlfriend, who lives close by, expressed concern about a suspicious person parked outside.
Weaver, who had been drinking, testified he approached the driver's side window and told the car's occupant to drive away "if you don't have any business here." Weaver said he was about 3 feet from the window and held the cigarette lighter down to his side out of view.
Weaver said he then remembers being shot -- twice in the side and once in the back -- before shouting to his girlfriend to call 911.
The first Chesterfield police officer to arrive at the scene testified he saw a box-cutter with its blade extended lying about 18 inches from Weaver after he collapsed. The gun-shaped lighter was on the ground underneath Weaver's body after he rolled over, the officer said.
Detective Sandy Humphries, who briefly interviewed Weaver in the hospital, said Weaver told her that he was holding the box-cutter in his left hand and the cigarette lighter in his right at the time of the shooting. She said Weaver also advised that the lighter "would look like a gun" if "you didn't see it out and about."
Weaver yesterday said he didn't recall making any statements.
After yesterday's hearing, Brooks said he and co-counsel Steve Sommers have filed notice with the city of Weaver's intent to seek civil damages against the officer and police department.
In late August, a local multijurisdictional grand jury concluded after a county police investigation that Weaver's shooting was justifiable.
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