Man found guilty of attempting to murder Burbank police officers in 2010 shooting
In this July 2010 file photo, a Burbank police officer stands over a gun outside the Kmart where an officer was shot by a handcuffed shoplifting suspect.
A jury on Friday convicted a 36-year-old man of attempting to kill two police officers after grabbing one of their guns, while handcuffed, during a routine shoplifting call six years ago, officials said.
Jamie Warren Willard was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder of a peace officer, two counts of assault on a peace officer with a semiautomatic firearm, one count of second-degree commercial burglary and one count of assault, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Willard, who is slated to be sentenced next month, is facing 83 years to life in state prison.
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The case stretches back to the Friday before Fourth of July six years ago, when Burbank police responded to the store to investigate a theft by a man who’d been seen stealing before.
During his detention on that hot July day, Willard went from being calm and cooperative to acting boisterous and uncooperative, according to court testimony. At one point, he started to cry and told police he couldn’t go to jail.
Prosecutor Mary Murray argued that all of Willard’s actions that day — from complaining about his handcuffs being too tight and swinging a fire extinguisher at a Kmart worker during his detention, to eventually disarming and shooting a police officer — were an attempt to avoid jail.
After Sgt. Derek Green, a patrol officer at the time, double-cuffed Willard’s hands and walked him out of the store with Officer Alex Gutierrez, Green opened his patrol car door to set his belongings on the passenger seat and turn on the ignition to run the air conditioner, he testified.
From there, he noticed a verbal exchange that turned physical.
That’s when he heard Gutierrez yell, “He has my gun! He has my gun!”
When he saw his partner’s pistol in Willard’s hand, Green drew his own and approached, pointing his gun at Willard.
He shouted for help on his radio while trying to get a clear shot, which was difficult because his partner and Willard were entangled.
During the scuffle, Willard managed to point the gun at Green, according to the officer’s testimony.
With five feet between them, the pair made eye contact before Green saw a muzzle flash and smoke, and immediately felt a sensation in his left hand.
The radio he’d been holding was gone, along with the watch that had been strapped to his wrist.
Wounded, he returned fire toward Willard, firing eight rounds toward the man’s lower extremities so he wouldn’t hit his partner.
Both Gutierrez and Willard were struck by ricocheting bullets, Public Defender Mark Carrillo said.
Gutierrez’s weapon was discharged twice before Green reportedly saw it fly through the air.
He rushed to the radio in his patrol car and put out a broadcast, 29 minutes after arriving at the store: “Shots fired, officer down at Kmart.”
After the shooting, Willard was shot with a Taser three times before he was ultimately taken into custody, Murray said.
Green underwent four surgeries to reconstruct his hand.
During closing arguments this week, Carrillo argued that his client “absolutely had nothing to do with” the officer’s gun, suggesting that it was the officer, not Willard, who discharged the weapon during the fight. He disputed all the charges except the one count of burglary.
Carrillo pointed to court testimony in which a supervisor testified that immediately after the incident, Gutierrez said he wasn’t sure whether he or Willard fired the weapon.
“We shouldn’t even be here,” Carrillo said, adding that no witnesses other than the two officers saw the gun in Willard’s double-cuffed hands. “How does a guy handcuffed behind his back get the weapon up and out of the holster?”
During her rebuttal, Murray argued that all the witnesses hid for cover when gunshots were fired, and that removing a gun from a holster is not an “insurmountable” task.
Carrillo, who is Willard’s third public defender in six years, said outside of court that the case took so long to go to trial because the prosecution’s case was “weak.” Murray said the defense kept asking for continuances.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
