A man was convicted Wednesday of being involved in a March 2017 murder in Los Angeles and then shooting at police and wounding a SWAT officer who was struck in the hip following a pursuit when authorities tried to arrest him nearly three months later.
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Jurors deliberated about five days before returning their verdict Tuesday on 13 counts in the trial of Qasim Knox, with the verdict being read Wednesday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
The panel acquitted the 33-year-old defendant of the most serious charge of first-degree murder, instead finding him guilty of the lesser count of second-degree murder for the March 31, 2017, killing of Whitney Henry Yorke in rival gang territory, along with acquitting him of one count of attempted murder involving two Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officers, including the wounded officer, and finding him guilty of the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
Jurors also found Knox guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm against the two LAPD SWAT officers, one count of attempted murder involving three Hawthorne police officers who also responded June 29, 2017, to the scene near the Hawthorne-El Segundo border, three counts of assault with a firearm against the three Hawthorne officers, one count each of shooting at an inhabited dwelling and shooting at an unoccupied vehicle and three counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Knox's attorney, Jovan Blacknell, told jurors that his client's older brother and his 13-year-old best friend were killed by police during separate traffic stops, arguing that Knox "very overtly gives up" and throws one of two guns when he realized police wanted to stop him.
The defense lawyer contended that his client thought he was going to surrender and was then shot at by the officers.
"Once the shooting happens ... it's a fight or flight. ... To Mr. Knox, the officers were coming to kill him," Blacknell said. "If Mr. Knox was of the mindset `I'm going to have a shootout with these officers,' he doesn't leave eight bullets in his gun."
Knox was struck three times by police gunfire, according to his attorney.
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Lonseth disputed the defense's contention that Knox was trying to surrender when he fled from the vehicle, calling it a "complete fantasy."
"He was on the run for a murder and he was going to do anything he could" to escape, the prosecutor told jurors in his final argument, adding that the officers were doing everything they could to defend themselves.
"There is no self-defense in this case. ... This isn't about some PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)," the prosecutor said.
Knox streamed part of the incident on Facebook Live with a gun in his hand, saying, "They're about to kill me. ... They got me."
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office's Justice System Integrity Division subsequently reviewed the shooting of Knox, concluding that LAPD SWAT officers and Hawthorne police officers "acted lawfully in self- defense, in the defense of others and in pursuit of a fleeing felon when they used deadly force" against him.
The two LAPD SWAT officers "were under fire from him and justified" in firing at him and that three Hawthorne police officers who encountered Knox "were also fired upon prior to reasonably returning fire in self-defense and defense of each other," according to a July 2019 memorandum from the District Attorney's Office.
Knox is facing multiple life terms in state prison, according to the prosecutor. Sentencing is set July 18 before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench.
Knox's attorney said he believes that his client has been wrongly portrayed as if he was "a monster."
"I don't think that's an accurate description of him at all," Blacknell said after the verdict. "He was a deeply traumatized person."
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