{"id":249814,"date":"2026-04-28T16:23:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249814\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T16:23:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:23:02","slug":"opening-statements-begin-in-trial-for-men-accused-of-home-invasion-that-left-tallahassee-officer-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/249814\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening statements begin in trial for men accused of home invasion that left Tallahassee officer shot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Opening statements began Tuesday morning in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/24\/jury-selection-begins-trial-three-men-accused-2023-home-invasion-that-left-tallahassee-officer-shot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/24\/jury-selection-begins-trial-three-men-accused-2023-home-invasion-that-left-tallahassee-officer-shot\/\">trial for three men<\/a> accused of a 2023 home invasion that left a Tallahassee police officer shot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One of the three men, John\u2019Darius Wright, is accused of shooting Tallahassee Police Officer Caleb Babb while running from a home invasion scene on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/03\/25\/dispatch-im-hit-tpd-releases-body-cam-video-september-home-invasion-that-left-officer-shot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/03\/25\/dispatch-im-hit-tpd-releases-body-cam-video-september-home-invasion-that-left-officer-shot\/\">Sandpiper Court in September 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officer Babb suffered massive blood loss as a result but survived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The two other suspects, Rahyim Sanders and Tyrell Guinnie, were also allegedly part of the home invasion. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"John\u2019Darious Wright, Rahiym Sanders and Tyrell Guinnie (left to right) are accused in the...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777393382_777_7BMYS2ADC5GJBE76PDFH5Z6W4A.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>John\u2019Darious Wright, Rahiym Sanders and Tyrell Guinnie (left to right) are accused in the September 25 shooting of a Tallahassee Police officer.(Photos\/Tallahassee Police Department, Gainesville Police Department)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Furthermore, detectives said Wright also allegedly shot another man during a different home invasion that same night on Cypress Point Road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">All three suspects face multiple counts of attempted murder and home invasion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After the incident occurred in 2023, Officer Babb received the Purple Heart award, an award city officials say is the highest honor given to a TPD member who is \u201cis significantly injured or killed in the line of duty.\u201d At that time, Babb was the fourth recipient of the award and the first to receive it while still living, according to the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text text-center\">Reporter Matt Hoffmann is in court and will provide real-time updates on his X account. Following along the thread below for more details:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tune in to Eyewitness News at 5 and 5 for the full story. This story will also be updated this evening with full details. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/28\/opening-statements-begin-trial-men-accused-home-invasion-that-left-tallahassee-officer-shot\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; Opening statements began Tuesday morning in a trial for three men accused of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[31858,107847,1721,2918,109387,106872,107852,109388,107849,2632,232,234,233,109386,107846,1634,1934,107853,1549],"class_list":["post-249814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-accused","tag-caleb-babb","tag-capital-city","tag-home-invasion","tag-johndarius-wright","tag-opening-statements","tag-rahyim-sanders","tag-sandpiper-court","tag-september-2023","tag-shot","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-tallahassee-police-officer","tag-three-men","tag-tpd","tag-trial","tag-tyrell-guinnie","tag-wctv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}