OAKLAND — Azell Burrell’s killing has one known eyewitness, a woman who testified she was jolted awake by a masked man attempting to break into the car she and her casual boyfriend had been sleeping in, and that she frantically woke him up before he allegedly killed the would-be burglar.
“The car was shaking…I screamed like somebody was going to break in the car,” she testified at the preliminary hearing for Marvelous Simmons, Burrell’s alleged killer. “I was terrified. I was scared for myself.”
The woman, jailed for refusing to answer a District Attorney subpoena, testified at Simmons’ March 6 preliminary hearing that after Simmons got outside the car, he and at least one occupant of a Scion began “shooting at each other.” Prosecutors aren’t so sure, though even the lead Oakland police investigator wrote in his file that he couldn’t disprove at least one shot was fired at Simmons from the Scion, court records show.
Despite the messy nature of the homicide, the reluctant witness who testified she knew Simmons as “Bobby,” a guy she barely knew after meeting on a dating app, and the allegation that Burrell drove the stolen Scion at Simmons before the shooting, prosecutors convinced Judge Armando Pastran to uphold murder and assault charges. Pastran said at the hearing he only did so after carefully reviewing the footage and weighing it against the prosecution’s theory, that Simmons acted like a vengeful assailant, pursuing the Scion and firing 16 times at the fleeing car.
“At no point is (Simmons), you know, ducking, jumping back, doing anything that’s indicative that he believes his life is in danger or that he’s taking fire or believes a gun is being pointed at him,” Deputy District Attorney Sean Flynn argued at the hearing. “If the defendant was scared for his life and believed deadly force was necessary, it seems a much more logical thing somebody in that position would do would be to leave the scene or stay in the car rather than get out of the car with a gun, go out in the street, and open fire in that manner.”
Simmons’ lawyer argued that the Scion started heading towards Simmons as soon as he exited his Nissan.
“He opens the door and steps into the street. As soon as he gets out, you see that vehicle driving towards him,” Assistant Public Defender Michael Wu argued. “I think that by itself is enough to suggest quite profoundly that this is reasonable self-defense, but in this particular case that’s not even all we have. Here there’s actually evidence suggesting that someone from Mr. Burrell’s car, either Mr. Burrell himself or someone else in his car, actually fired at least one shot toward Mr. Simmons.”
Flynn conceded there are “unanswered questions” in the case, including whether a second person was in the Scion, which crashed after Burrell, the driver, was hit. There was also physical evidence of someone shooting from the Scion, including a shell casing found inside, he said.
One detail no one disputes: Burrell was seen on film burglarizing several cars near 43rd Street and Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. Eventually, video shows him going up to a parked Nissan and peering inside. That’s when he awoke Simmons’ casual girlfriend, who testified she was upset and “flustered” and started “screaming” at Simmons to wake up. Burrell flees to the Scion and drives. He was still wearing a ski mask and gloves when police found him, dead from a gunshot wound to the head, inside the Scion, police testified.
The shooting occurred four days after Christmas 2022. Simmons and his girlfriend had just finished eating at a barbecue place in Emeryville and parked her Nissan in Oakland to take a nap, she testified.
A brief online obituary for Burrell says he worked as a contractor and “is survived by many loving family members and friends and will be deeply missed.”
At Simmons’ preliminary hearing, it was revealed he had been charged under the wrong name. He was originally charged as “Lovell Simmons,” not his real first name, Marvelous, a mistake that was only corrected last month.
When the hearing concluded, Judge Pastran said that for the killing not to be murder, Simmons would have to have “actually believed that someone was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury.”
“I know it’s the People’s burden, and so what we have to look at is the evidence in the video,” Pastran said. “It’s — in this court’s mind, there’s — it doesn’t show ·that he actually believed that.”
Simmons pleaded not guilty on March 30. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail.