Ex-UAPB student could get death penalty
DALLAS — A former University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff student who once aspired to become a rapper faces the possibility of the death penalty for his capital murder conviction in the shooting deaths of three people at a Dallas drug house.
The penalty phase opens today in the trial of Justin Pharez Smith, 24, in which prosecutors will present evidence in their bid for a death sentence.
Killed in the August 2014 shooting rampage were Tyteanna Brown, 21; Kimberly Montgomery, 36; and Demarcus Walton, 37.
Smith also shot a woman in the face, who played dead, and hit a man with his car while making his getaway. Both survived to testify against him.
Smith was raised by his grandparents, regularly attended church and was involved in a mentorship program at UAPB when his life took a profound change, The Dallas Morning News reported. Prosecutors said he befriended Walton and regularly visited the drug house, where Walton supplied him with drugs to sell in Arkansas.
“He thought he’d come to Dallas on the dope game,” prosecutor Kobby Warren said, but that Smith “was a terrible drug dealer.”
Warren said Smith was still broke after trying to sell the drugs, but he knew there was plenty of cash at Walton’s house.
“He’s figured out what he really wants to be, and it ain’t a schoolboy,” said Edwin King, another prosecutor.
Sessions praises efforts of NYC police
NEW YORK — U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the New York Police Department has developed “some of the best” policing techniques ever and should be studied, just days after the Justice Department chastised New York City for a “soft on crime” stance.
The Republican Sessions said Sunday on ABC’s This Week that the Justice Department statement was in reference to the city’s so-called sanctuary city policy that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities, but praised the city’s law enforcement for efforts to make the city safer.
City officials had strongly criticized the Justice Department statement, with Police Commissioner James O’Neill saying it was “absolutely ludicrous” and noting that violent crime has continued to fall and the number of shootings last year was the lowest since crime record-keeping began.
NYC house fire leaves 5 people dead
NEW YORK — Five people, including three children, died in a Sunday afternoon house fire that engulfed a single-family home in New York City, spreading to other houses and injuring neighbors.
The dead were two boys, 2 and 9; a girl, 14; a woman, 20; and a man, 45, officials said. All lived in the home.
Four firefighters suffered minor injuries. No other people were injured.
The fire broke out shortly after 2:30 p.m. New York time in Queens Village, a neighborhood near horse racing’s Belmont Park. The two-story home was engulfed.
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said witnesses reported hearing a series of loud booms and that one saw someone leap or fall from a two-story window. The person, a 46-yearold man, fell onto a porch roof and then a lawn. Nigro said that man was hospitalized in satisfactory condition.
“These homes were built 97 years ago,” Nigro said. “They’re wood-frame homes, and they burn rapidly.”
Bail increased for father of missing boy
SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. — Police in Southern California on Sunday finished their search of a park where the unconscious father of a missing 5-year-old boy was found over the weekend, and they are asking anyone with information to come forward.
South Pasadena Police Chief Art Miller said investigators have had a difficult time getting answers from the boy’s father, Aramazd Andressian Sr., who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of child endangerment and child abduction after paramedics found him in South Pasadena’s Arroyo Park.
Investigators don’t know why the man was unconscious, Miller said, adding that there is no evidence he was attacked.
The mother of Aramazd Andressian Jr. reported Saturday that her estranged husband had failed to drop the boy off at a pre-arranged meeting place. The parents are divorcing and share custody.
Aramazd Andressian Sr.’s bail was initially set at $100,000, but detectives later went back to a judge to explain the boy is still missing and provide additional information about the circumstances behind the boy’s disappearance. The judge then increased Andressian’s bail to $10 million, Miller said.
A Section on 04/24/2017