Murder suspect, 49, disputes LR police, details about shooting

— A 49-year-old man charged with first-degree murder told a Pulaski County jury Monday that he shot another man and then led Little Rock police on a highspeed chase into North Little Rock with his toddler in the car only because he wanted to protect the boy.

The pursuit ended when police deliberately rammed the vehicle, not knowing the toddler was inside. The child wasn’t hurt.

“I needed to get my son to his mom,” Jacques Slocum testified on the stand in his own defense, acknowledging that he had been driving recklessly and dangerously.

“I think I was doing what I should as a parent. Did I do everything right? Did I thinkabout the consequences? No.”

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. today before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza. Slocum is also charged with child endangerment and fleeing.

Slocum, facing a potential life sentence, made very few concessions to authorities Monday beyond admitting he made a mistake when he led police on a chase that involved him driving into oncoming traffic and reaching 70 mph in a residential neighborhood.

With the “the child I adore more than anything in the world” in the back seat, Slocum said, his only thoughts were to get 2-yearold Binjaweh Anderson back to Slocum’s wife, MeredithAnderson, testifying he feared what authorities would do with the boy.

But he denounced police testimony that the pursuit only ended because a state trooper forced his car off the road. Slocum said the trooper rammed his car even though he had already stopped to give himself up, saying that he might have stopped earlier if police hadn’t been pursuing him so aggressively.

And while Slocum grudgingly conceded that 39-yearold Joe E. Jackson Jr. was unarmed during their fatal October encounter outside of 4312 W. 18th, he maintained the younger man was the aggressor, testifying that Jackson refused to back down even when Slocum pulled out a gun.

Slocum said he’d stopped at the home when he saw a friend outside the residence. Jackson, who was visiting the home, was “mean mugging” him, Slocum said, saying Jackson escalated a “civil” conversation about a debt Slocum owed into an argument and confrontation.

Slocum said he was trying to leave but that Jackson wouldn’t let him, first blocking Slocum’s car with his body, then pulling open the driver’s door.

“He snatched my car door open,” Slocum said. “It was the only time in my life I’ve seen fear in my child’s eyes. I grabbed my pistol.”

Instead of backing down from the weapon, Slocum said, Jackson grappled with him over the gun, which led to Jackson getting shot the first time. Slocum said Jackson then managed to throw him to the ground where Slocum fired again.

According to medical testimony, Jackson was shot twice, once through a lung and once through his heart - each wound sufficient to have killed him. But Slocum disputed police testimony that Jackson died at the scene, saying the younger man was still alive when he left.

“I did not leave a dead man on the ground,” he said, describing how he stood over the stricken man briefly before fleeing. “I said, ‘Look at what you made me do. You just f* up my life and my son’s.’”

Aside from contradicting police testimony, Slocum’s account of the slaying did not appear to completely agree with the testimony of two prosecution eyewitnesses, Tineil Williams and Tracy Brown, neither of whom described any physical fight between the men. Both said Slocum got a gun out of his car and shot Jackson after themen had argued.

Williams said police, who happened to be a block away when Jackson was killed, arrived so quickly that he didn’t have time to get to Jackson to see how bad his wounds were. Brown said Jackson didn’t seem to believe that Slocum would shoot him, saying Jackson first tried to push the gun away and was backing away when Slocum shot him.

Slocum, his voice sometimes rising to a shout, was animated during his 92 minutes on the witness stand Monday during questioning both by his attorney, Steve Smith, and by prosecutor Leigh Patterson.

Slocum vividly re-enacted his version of the shooting for jurors, playing both himself and the victim and twice throwing himself to the floor to mimic a struggle.

When Slocum complained that the prosecutor was persecuting him, the judge admonished him to stick to answering her questions.

Slocum repeatedly tried to turn the prosecutor’s questions back on her, even questioning her about whether Patterson had a gun and how she carried it.

“I know you have one,” he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 06/19/2012

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