‘Tigger shot the officer’
Girl on back of cycle says ‘ freaking out’ Davon Lymon shot APD’s Webster
The 17-year-old girl riding on the back of a motorcycle when police stopped it last October testified Tuesday that it was the driver, Davon Lymon, who fired the shots that killed Albuquerque officer Daniel Webster.
Savannah Garcia, now 18, was the prosecution’s final witness in Lymon’s trial on a charge that as a convicted felon he illegally possessed the Taurus handgun used to fatally wound Webster. Lymon’s defense presented no witnesses. Lymon waived his right to a jury trial and prosecutors agreed.
Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo is expected to issue a written ruling in the coming days. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years.
Garcia described shooting up heroin in a bathroom Oct. 21, 2015, before accompanying Lymon, whom she called “Tigger,” on his motorcycle as he delivered drugs to various locations. The two were on their way to Walgreens to buy cigarettes when Webster stopped them.
“I started panicking because I had warrants,” said Garcia, who currently lives at Camino Nuevo Youth Center, a juvenile detention center in Albuquerque. “He (Lymon) told me to stay cool.”
She said Lymon, 35, asked her to stash the drugs he was carrying in her bra, which she did. And she
complied as Webster told her to put her hands on her head.
“Tigger was freaking out,” she said, adding that Webster had his gun drawn as Lymon continued “fumbling.”
“When he went to go handcuff Davon, he shot him,” she said. “Tigger shot the officer in the neck.”
After a massive hunt, police found Lymon with handcuffs still hanging from his left wrist. As Lymon ran from the scene, so did Garcia, who said she later threw away the blood-spattered clothes she was wearing. She said she was “really high” at the time, but after the shooting felt “instant soberness.”
In his cross-examination, Lymon’s attorney Marc Robert reviewed several inconsistent statements Garcia gave detectives a few days after the shooting. He noted that she initially denied ever having been on the motorcycle. Garcia said she lied because she was afraid to incriminate Lymon.
“I know he knows a lot of big people,” she said. “Big drug dealers, big gang bangers.”
In his brief closing statement, Robert reminded the judge that Lymon said he didn’t remember the incident.
“Drugs obviously played a role in the events of Oct. 21,” he said.
Earlier in the day, prosecutors played footage of Lymon in an interview room telling police officers that he hoped the officer would survive.
“I honestly don’t remember what the (expletive) happened,” Lymon said in the recording. “I don’t remember.”
Prosecutor Jacob Wishard called that explanation “fanciful.”
Gun seller
Tuesday’s witnesses included the man who said he sold Lymon the Taurus pistol police said fired the shots that killed Webster. He recounted talking to Lymon on the phone before agreeing to meet him in a Weinerschnitzel parking lot on Juan Tabo, where the sale took place.
Edward Dominguez, the man who owned the home where Lymon was staying, also testified. He said he met Tigger in the penitentiary, and although he didn’t know his last name, offered to let him live rent-free in the garage he converted into a bedroom.
It was in the closet of that room that APD Detective Todd Babcock said he found a bright orange Taurus pistol box stowed in a chest.
Although police allege Lymon fired the shots that killed Webster, he has not been indicted in state court on charges connected to the officer’s death. The Attorney General’s Office has said it plans to file charges when Lymon’s federal cases are resolved.
In addition to the charge tried this week, Lymon faces three more firearms charges in the same federal case.