Federal trial will decide if felon had gun used to kill cop
State charges related to slaying of officer Webster will follow
In the moments before shots were fired on Oct. 21, 2015, Albuquerque police officer Daniel Webster shouted instructions to Davon Lymon, the driver of a motorcycle he had just stopped.
“Hands behind your back!” Webster said. “Lean forward!”
The motorcyclist complained that he was in pain and cried out repeatedly before gunshots rang out, leaving Webster fatally wounded. He died of his injuries eight days later.
That interaction was recorded on Webster’s lapel camera, which prosecutors played for Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo on Monday, the first day of Lymon’s bench trial on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors will seek to prove Lymon illegally possessed the pistol used in the officer’s shooting. As a felon, Lymon is not allowed to possess a gun, according to the indictment. Although police believe Lymon fired the shots that killed Webster, he has not been charged in state court in connection to Webster’s death. State prosecutors have said they will move forward with those charges after the federal case is resolved.
As the lapel video played, Webster’s wife and other observers in the courtroom cried, as did Albuquerque police detective Katherine Wright, who described watching the video for the first
time at the University of New Mexico Hospital on the night of the shooting. A colleague had pulled the video up on his phone and the two scoured it for suspect information.
“Officers who were still on the scene of the shooting,” she said, “needed to know who we were looking for.”
Witnesses described seeing a man in a motorcycle helmet running away from a store. Law enforcement set up a perimeter encompassing 16 city blocks and launched a search. John Skinner, a tactical flight operator for the Albuquerque Police Department, said he was looking for the suspect from a police helicopter when he noticed a person crouching as he walked through a backyard. He said the man tried the door to a shed before hopping a fence and hiding under the porch of a neighboring home. That man became a “priority target,” and several more officers were dispatched to the home on Espejo NE, where a police dog ultimately found Lymon, witnesses said.
Officer Mike Hernandez said his dog is trained to detect human scent and indicated that a person was still in the backyard of the vacant home. When that person refused to comply with commands to come out, police fired a flash-bang device and a gas canister. Hernandez sent in his dog after those methods proved unsuccessful.
“I began hearing rumbling,” Hernandez said, adding that the dog was making his way through a porch cluttered with construction material. “And then I began to hear someone scream.”
As the dog held tightly to Lymon’s left arm, officers noticed a handcuff hanging from his wrist. Officers took Lymon into custody. His attorney, Kari Converse, said the encounter with the dog left Lymon with a broken bone.
Armijo heard testimony from 16 witnesses Monday, including Walgreens employees, civilians who witnessed the shooting and a slew of law enforcement personnel. She also heard from forensic scientist Jay Stuart, a firearm and tool mark examiner assigned to the case.
Stuart said the casings found in the Walgreens parking lot had been fired by from a Taurus handgun that prosecutors say Lymon had in his possession on that October night. Stuart also said the same gun fired the bullets he examined, which were collected from Webster’s body and from the ceiling of a nearby Starbucks.