The trial begins for Mtula Payton and Dandrae Martin, charged with Sacramento’s 2022 K Street mass shooting. Both face multiple charges, including felony murder.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Opening statements began Monday morning in the trial of two men charged in connection to Sacramento’s 2022 K Street mass shooting.
More than four years after the downtown shooting left six people dead and 12 others wounded, Mtula Payton and Dandrae Martin are now facing a jury for the first time.
The trial, which began with opening statements at the Sacramento County Courthouse, is expected to lay out competing narratives from prosecutors and defense attorneys about what led to the deadly gunfire.
Prosecutors are expected to rely on video evidence, witness testimony and years of investigation as they work to show who they believe is responsible. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, are expected to challenge that version of events, raising questions about who started the violence and whether self-defense could play a role.
Ahead of the trial, Sacramento attorney and former prosecutor Michael Wise, who is not directly involved in the trial, said cases like this can be especially complex for jurors to follow.
“You get these two sides, if you will, who, by the time things really jump off, they feel like they’re both justified in their violence and their decisions. And that is part of the gang culture, if you will. And it makes it very hard for prosecutors to put the case on, and it creates a lot of work for counsel, for the defendants as well,” Wise said.
Wise said the presence of multiple shooters and the dynamics of gang-related violence can complicate efforts to determine who is legally responsible.
He also explained that prosecutors often have to reconstruct events step-by-step, working backward from the outcome.
“They start with the ultimate result, which is a homicide, and then with the benefit of video witnesses, any other recordings they might obtain, or photographs, social media, communications and posts, then they kind of go backwards to see what created the problem in the first place, and they look at the beginning of the incident that night to see who did what first and who was responding,” Wise said.
The trial comes after years of legal delays, which experts say can add additional challenges, including fading memories and witness availability.
With multiple people involved and competing accounts of what happened, attorneys say the case may not be straightforward for jurors to untangle.
Wise expects the trial to last at least several weeks, given the amount of evidence and number of witnesses expected to be presented.
ABC10 will continue to follow developments in the case and provide updates as opening statements continue and testimony begins.
Prosecutors say Sacramento shooting stemmed from gang standoff at K Street
Defense says Sacramento shooting was chaotic chain reaction, not planned attack