OAKLAND — Just six months after a suspect was arrested, the trial has started over a fatal shooting allegedly motivated by an outstanding debt.
Elijah Rucker, 34, was arrested six months ago in the January killing of 34-year-old Romell Wright. While it is typical for murder cases to stay in legal limbo for months, Rucker’s case is going at a rapid pace, with jurors listening to opening statements and witness testimony on Monday.
The case will likely rest on whether jurors find merit in the defense’s explanation that the eyewitnesses who identified Rucker as the shooter were simply repeating a false rumor that had been inadvertently started at the crime scene.
Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hartman, who is prosecuting the case, said that three eyewitnesses implicated Rucker and that one picked him from a photo lineup. The other two knew Rucker personally and identified him as the shooter despite their initial reluctance to help police, he said.
A key piece of evidence, Hartman said, came in May after Rucker was arrested while in possession of the pistol used in the shooting. He said the motive was an outstanding debt and that Rucker and Wright had quarreled over the money beforehand, with Wright pleading with Rucker to put down the gun, telling him there were kids with him in his vehicle.
That wasn’t true, Hartman said, and when Rucker noticed there weren’t children present it pushed him over the edge.
“(Rucker) said, ‘You ain’t got any kids in the car,’ and shot him in the head,” Hartman said.
Rucker’s lawyer, Pinaki Chakravorty, said that Rucker’s nickname, “Eli,” had been repeated by Rucker’s fiancée at the crime scene. Even though she hadn’t witnessed the shooting, an eyewitness overheard the remark, decided Rucker was responsible, and started a rumor that the other eyewitnesses later repeated to police, the defense attorney told jurors.
The witnesses had all earlier claimed to not know the shooter or said he was wearing a mask or a hoodie that prevented a clear identification, Chakravorty said.
“A lot of this case isn’t really evidence, and in fact what it is, is gossip,” Chakravorty said. “The kind that builds on itself and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The prosecution and the defense agree on some of the facts of the Jan. 7 shooting. Hartman said that Wright and three friends spent the night before hanging out, discussing their hopes and aspirations for the future, but also using methamphetamine and fentanyl until morning.
They were all inside Wright’s four-door sedan — packed to the brim with miscellaneous clutter — when a white SUV pulled up. The passenger exited, confronted Wright, and eventually shot him in the head. He fired two more shots when Wright’s brother attempted to chase after him, Hartman said.
Wright’s brother called 911, one of two emergency calls the jury heard Monday morning.
“They shot my brother … I think he got shot in the head,” Wright’s distressed brother told a dispatcher.
Neither Hartman nor Chakravorty provided any clues to the identity of the SUV’s driver, and Rucker is the only one charged in Wright’s death thus far.
The homicide scene was at 89th Avenue and Plymouth Street in East Oakland, a section of town where violent crime is hardly uncommon. Underscoring this point was this crime fact: Police found seven shell casings at the scene, and only three of them had been fired by Wright’s killer.
“The other four casings were from different shootings,” Hartman said.