Jurors see video of aftermath of Alaysha Carradine’s killing

Alaysha Carradine, 8, shot to death on a sleepover in Oakland on July 15, 2013. Alaysha Carradine, 8, shot to death on a sleepover in Oakland on July 15, 2013. Photo: Family Photo, Courtesy Of Carradine Family Photo: Family Photo, Courtesy Of Carradine Family Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Jurors see video of aftermath of Alaysha Carradine’s killing 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Cameras worn by police are often thought of as a way to record officers’ conduct. But jurors in an Oakland courtroom saw a different kind of footage Monday as one of the city’s most shocking killings in recent years went to trial.

The video showed an officer arriving to a Dimond neighborhood apartment where 8-year-old Alaysha Carradine had been slain while answering the door during a 2013 sleepover.

A gunman bent on revenge had fired through the door, prosecutors said, and the officer found the girl wounded. He rushed her to a paramedic as he called for more ambulance crews to tend to three others, two of them children, who had been struck.

As the video played in the Alameda County courtroom, Alaysha’s mother, Chiquita Carradine, rushed from the gallery, overcome with emotion.

Deputy District Attorney John Brouhard played the footage as opening statements got under way in the trial of Darnell Williams, a 25-year-old Oakland man accused of murdering Alaysha on July 17, 2013. Two months later, Williams allegedly shot and killed a second person, 22-year-old Anthony Medearis, in Berkeley.

Prosecutors charged Williams with two counts of first-degree murder and are seeking the death penalty, an increasingly rare bid in a state where the punishment is held up in a longtime court fight.

Brouhard painted Williams as a vigilante angry about the death in Berkeley of a friend, Jermaine Davis, hours before Alaysha was shot. Williams went to the apartment looking for Antiown York, who he believed was responsible for killing Davis, Brouhard said. The apartment belonged to York’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his two children.

York was later charged in Davis’ death, but the charges were dropped because of witness problems.

Brouhard told jurors the evidence showed Williams had no qualms about “killing innocent and defenseless people, including women and children,” in pursuit of revenge.

The prosecutor showed pictures of the scarred apartment door. An exterior metal gate had 13 bullet holes, while the interior wood door had eight — indicating, Brouhard said, that Williams fired five shots after the door opened and he knew he was shooting at children.

“The shots were not aimed up, where an adult would have been standing behind the door,” Brouhard said. “The gunshots were aimed down, where children would stand.”

Brouhard said Williams held a vendetta against his second victim, Medearis, since 2011 when Medearis implicated a mutual acquaintance in a robbery. Then Williams encountered Medearis at a dice game in Berkeley on Sept. 8, 2013, the prosecutor said.

At that point, Oakland police had identified Williams as a suspect in Alaysha’s death and had obtained a wiretap for his cell phone. In a series of text messages to an acquaintance, Brouhard said, Williams had described how he was going to rob Medearis, but he instead attacked him in a parking lot behind an apartment building, chasing him and firing a pistol as the victim screamed for help.

One bullet ricocheted, and a fragment hit Williams’ 7-year-old nephew, whom he was babysitting, just below the eye, Brouhard said.

Defense attorneys are to deliver an opening statement Tuesday. Both sides are under a gag order barring them from talking about the case outside court.