(NUMBER DIALING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(FEMALE CALLER SPEAKING)
(DISPATCHER SPEAKING)
(FEMALE CALLER SPEAKING)
-(DISPATCHER SPEAKING) -(SIREN BLARING)
Now, there's allegations that there was a confrontation.
Brandon was one of over 400 people that night.
They don't have a single eyewitness
that says anything about Brandon having a gun
or shooting anyone.
Brandon's either guilty or he's extremely unlucky.
BRENT HAWKINS: My name is Brent Hawkins
and I am one of Brandon Perkins' attorneys.
Brandon Perkins is charged with second-degree murder,
and in Louisiana, second-degree murder carries
a mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.
So, it's the most serious offense that you can be accused of
in Louisiana without facing the death penalty.
ADAM JOHNSON: My name's Adam Johnson, I'm a criminal defense attorney
and I also represent Brandon Perkins.
The day is June 24th, 2018,
Brandon was invited by a couple of his friends to a trail ride,
out in, basically, the woods.
A trail ride is where everybody gets horses,
they're side by side as they go out,
they spend some time outdoors.
They have live music.
And everybody comes together and just has a big dance.
So, he gets to that evening, meets his friends.
There's a gentleman there.
The victim, by the name of De'Lanzo Veal.
He's known as Zo.
Now, De'Lanzo happens to be the father
of a young lady who Brandon recently had a child with.
And Brandon was in the process of actually trying to establish
visitation with this child.
ADAM: Now, there's allegations that there was a confrontation
between Brandon and De'Lanzo.
De'Lanzo Veal is shot three times on the dance floor.
Brandon responds after he sees the shooting
like everybody else that was there.
Everybody scatters. It's pure chaos.
He gets in his car, he takes off.
BRENT: Several hours after the event occurred,
Brandon volunteered to talk to the police.
They start questioning him.
Within the next four hours
after that initial interview,
they issue an arrest warrant for second-degree murder.
The State's case will be that Brandon was near De'Lanzo Veal when he was shot.
That there was a connection between De'Lanzo Veal and Brandon.
Brandon was one of over 400 people that night.
I mean, it is packed...
with private security being provided
by the Evangeline Parish Sheriff's office.
And they don't have a single eyewitness
that says anything about Brandon having a gun
or shooting anyone.
He's charged with one of the most serious crimes
that you can possibly be charged with
and his life is absolutely on the line.
We're going to do everything in our power to
make sure that an innocent man isn't wrongfully convicted.
Before this incident, life was pretty normal.
Being a typical dad,
enjoying life with my family.
My son was 11 years old
at the time of the incident.
(CHILD CHATTERING)
Coming from a Southern state,
family's always been a very important thing in my life.
Being locked up 24 hours, seven days a week...
my mama really took it hard.
My son took it hard, too.
It was very hard on a mother
to see her child incarcerated.
Dressed in orange. It was very hard.
It was very hard for Brandon,
because he felt like he was a disappointment.
He was very withdrawn.
I know jail is not for no one.
I wish that on nobody.
FREDRICK SOUTH: It was just, it was terrifying.
I'd have never dreamed in a million years
this would happen to us,
especially Brandon.
Going to see my child...
in a cage...
it was really...
disgusting.
I don't get a lot of sleep,
because as the father, the head of this family,
you know, I think about a lot of things
and I'm trying to be the problem solver.
So, I'm trying to figure out how things can go if...
things was to take a curve.
-Brandon? -What's up, Mr. Adam.
Hey, bro. How are you?
-All right. And yourself? -Good.
As best you can, just walk us through what happened that night.
I got a phone call from a couple friends
inviting me to go out to a trail ride.
Everything seemed to be pretty cool, and then,
you know, ran across De'Lanzo...
my daughter's grandfather.
We made eye contact a few times.
Not threatening.
-No arguments or disagreements. -BRENT: Okay.
Just exchange of words with one another.
And, you know, after that,
that's when I heard gunshots...
and I realized that the gunshots was close.
It's like everything went left from there.
So, after... um...
De'Lanzo's shot, what happens?
Everyone instantly took off running.
I got in my car, speeded down the highway.
Before I got to my residence, I got a phone call...
-BRENT: Okay. -...from my mother.
Once I made it back to my mother's residence, she...
she brought me to the police station.
They interviewed me. Asked me for my statement.
BRENT: What happens next?
They told me that I was being charged with second-degree murder.
ADAM: Why would they have any
reason to want you to be accused of this?
I guess being the last person talking to him.
There's this notion that somehow
there's this beef or tension between you and Zo
about how he felt you were treating his daughter.
I know that y'all hadn't dated or anything like that.
You guys had just kinda hooked up.
Was he okay with that? Was there issues?
BRANDON: The problem came after the child.
ADAM: You didn't initially know whether or not it was your child
and so you asked her to have a DNA test. Is that correct?
-Yes, sir. -Okay.
Do you think that upset De'Lanzo?
Yes, sir.
That probably triggered the situation.
I really never had a relationship with my baby girl.
Before this situation,
I was actually trying to get a lawyer
to be able to have joint custody of her...
BRENT: That makes a lot of sense.
Tell me, anything else out there you feel like we need to know,
that's just critical?
No, not really.
-All right, let's go. Yep. -Good meeting.
Good to see you, brother.
Absolutely.
Talking to Brandon, he's one of those clients that keeps you up at night.
You want to make absolutely sure you do everything in your power
so as not to screw it up for him.
So that he gets the justice he deserves.
ADAM: What we're doing today is reviewing
Brandon's statements that he gave to the police.
(POLICE RECORDING PLAYING)
ADAM: You can never watch your client's statements too many times
because a lot of times as you learn new information,
something will hit differently in something he said.
ADAM: What Brandon's saying is,
is that De'Lanzo comes up to him
and he puts up his hand like this.
And then that's what triggered someone else's response to what happened.
I cannot believe they let him walk into that room
with a knife on him.
This is extremely odd to see
someone's mom and dad be involved in interviewing their son.
It'd be way more normal to see it
with a juvenile being questioned.
I never want to see my client questioned
in orange.
It just brings a whole bunch of negative connotations.
(INTERVIEW CONTINUES)
He just exercised his right to an attorney.
We should see like, everybody getting up and leaving.
Unbelievable.
-FRED: Hey, Adam, pause it for a second. -Yep.
She's acting more as a law enforcement officer
-than as his mom right now. -ADAM: Yeah, right.
The police officers have a duty to end the interview.
They clearly violate his rights.
His mom is telling him you need to be truthful with these people.
It's almost as though she's...
attacking him in a way. I don't like that.
You can't think of something stupider
to introduce into a conversation
while dressed in orange, all right,
but for the same reason,
it has to be taken as just being 100% cooperative.
Brandon's given them way more information than he should have.
He should have never done this interview without a lawyer.
The plan, with respect to these two interviews is
I have no problems with the first one at all.
But I do think we'll win a motion to suppress on the second.
Brandon clearly asserts his rights,
and then he just ignores those rights and continues to question him.
-What's up? -BRENT: Hey, man. What's going on?
How are you?
All right, tell me what you got.
BRENT: De'Lanzo Veal was a 48-year-old Black male.
He was shot three times.
Two shots to his torso, one to his arm.
The torso shots, that's what killed him.
The interesting part of it is, the torso shots,
one of them, they talk about
gunpowder stippling being present.
That's pretty objective evidence
that the shooter was close to the deceased.
We have Brandon standing within a meter.
-BRENT: That is problematic. -Yeah.
But he wasn't the only person out there
within that three-foot range.
The next thing we got is, we got a report on the ballistics.
They recovered the three casings.
-Right. -So, all .40 caliber.
So, what's your thoughts?
(SIGHS)
It's tough, I mean...
The fact that he's standing that close,
and, you know, the shots are all fired at close range,
that's a difficult, difficult situation.
Brandon's either guilty or he's extremely unlucky.
ADAM: We're going to inspect
the site of where the alleged crime occurred.
Just put fresh eyes on the scene.
It's probably safe to say that we're going
to be being watched while we're out there.
So, you just have to keep that in mind.
We have judicial approval.
We've notified the DA and all that good stuff.
You know, we've dotted the I's and crossed the T's.
ADAM: So we knocked on the door just to ask permission to open the gate.
Fifteen minutes after that happens,
there's a sheriff's officer that comes pulling up.
I had some fear that we might run into
some stupid nonsense out there, you know?
-But for it to actually happen... -BRENT: Yeah, but that--
-...is kind of like just brazen. -Just for the police to show up.
I thought when they were coming out there, they were coming to help.
That's what we thought.
The officer gets out his car and tells us he's been ordered by his supervisor
to, I guess, detain and cite us
for criminal trespass violations.
What happened is,
Brent jumped into full-on criminal defense lawyer mode,
called the judge.
We had to get the judge to call the sheriff
and undo the citations he had already started plugging into the system.
So, we're going to figure out what happened and get to the bottom of it.
ADAM: We'll regroup and we'll go back. We will not be deterred.
BRANDON: Yeah, I remember the night
like it happened yesterday.
The trail rides have been a big weekend celebration.
Everyone dresses their horse up.
Making sure that it's well-groomed and washed
and real shiny and pretty.
When the ride comes back to the main event.
And the main event is when the zydeco player show up.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
It was like a normal night.
There was a lot dancing.
And they make the best of it, and enjoy the drinking and the good food.
Not showing any signs of,
you know, danger or anything of that nature.
But we was having an awesome time.
After I heard the gunshots, it changed, you know.
You don't know how to really respond to a situation of that nature.
-Hey, bud. -All right, man. Here we go.
We got the pictures.
ADAM: Okay, you wanna put 'em up?
So, right here, between this pole right here
and the corner of the bar,
is where De'Lanzo Veal and Brandon Perkins are standing.
The body fell right here.
All right, put him up there.
We got Brent Zachary here.
He is the chief of police.
He's on private security detail.
ADAM: He's on the dance floor.
He's on the dance floor,
and it's not a big dance floor.
ADAM: In his testimony, Brent Zachary puts himself
20 feet away from the shooting.
-That's correct. -Right? So he's close by as well.
All right, Josh Lafleur.
Let's put him here.
So, he's working private security that night.
Lafleur is standing in between the stage and the bar.
In his testimony, Lafleur claims that he was focused
on Brandon and De'Lanzo
-immediately prior to the shooting... -That's right.
...and that there was some sort of an exchange of words.
Not sure if it's heated or not,
but he's paying attention to them.
Lafleur is four feet away from the shooting.
Now that you have it sort of mapped out,
it's very clear that
Josh Lafleur and Brent Zachary should be in no way involved
-in this investigation. -No.
They can't be objective here at all.
They should have been questioned as witnesses.
ADAM: You wonder why in the world
are they being allowed to take such an active role in the investigation.
ADAM: The victim, De'Lanzo, he's on the ground.
They're still performing CPR.
We're probably between 15 and 45 minutes
post shooting, probably, at the start of this video.
(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)
ADAM: All right, hold on, watch that right there.
I'm gonna go back.
Lafleur grabs the bodycam.
BRENT: Oh!
-And this is Lafleur with the camera now, right? -ADAM: Yeah.
Look, look at this.
Watch the guy over here just come walking underneath the tape.
-See him ducking under the tapes? -BRENT: Yeah.
The crime scene is not secure at all.
We've added now two or three more people to the crime scene
who just apparently come walking up.
And they had law enforcement on the ground.
So, that should have been very easy for them to do.
This is just a couple hanging out.
(CAMERA CLICKS)
ADAM: Also, do you hear the click?
(CAMERA CLICKS)
ADAM: Yeah, it's just cut off.
There's no reason whatsoever
that a bodycam should be turned off.
ADAM: Now we see him turn it back on.
(CAMERA CLICKS)
He cuts off the camera again.
To have officers who were there
for at least three hours,
and to have minutes of footage.
Unbelievable.
I know why we had to work this hard to get it.
ADAM: So, first they said we don't have body cameras.
Then they told the DA that they didn't have body camera footage,
and he came in the courtroom and said they didn't have body camera footage.
So then we say, "Well, Judge, we don't necessarily believe them.
"Let's have them come into court and sign affidavits saying they don't have body cameras."
Then the prosecutor says that
the law enforcement took a second look at that bodycam issue
and found some body camera footage.
Right?
I would have expected somebody to have the courage to say,
we don't have a case against this guy
that gets near beyond a reasonable doubt.
BRANDON: I work probably like, maybe like four hours,
45 minutes from Louisiana.
When I got out of jail,
I knew that I had to get to work
with this case going on and the long road ahead of me,
fighting a murder charge.
I had to find a job that was willing to pay more money
to even survive and help me to be able to
pay for my lawyer fees.
We live in a state where you got to be ready to fight
for your freedom,
or fight for what's right.
No matter the circumstances or the situation.
ADAM: The difficult thing strategy-wise is,
how hard are we gonna go at the police,
you know, and run a risk of the jury kinda wanting to defend the police.
The fear is, is that you're going into a small town
and you're saying, hey,
your sheriff's department is either completely inept.
Right?
Or two,
they're intentionally trying to cover up a crime.
And so, going into a small town like Ville Platte
and doing that,
we've got to make sure that we do it
in a very straightforward and fair way,
or else this could completely backfire on us.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Another exciting day
in Evangeline Parish.
So, we went to meet with the judge,
and the judge says
they want to remove him from the case.
The prosecution basically are accusing
the judge of improper communication
with us.
They don't want to go to trial.
They're trying to make this last minute argument
to try and prevent the trial at all costs.
It got incredibly heated.
I said, "I will not do it.
"My client cannot afford to pay me to redo this,
"um, you know, again. It cannot happen.
"Like, there will be material injustice."
I said, "Are y'all that scared?
"Are y'all that scared to go to trial?"
And I said, "And if you file the motion,"
I said, "we're going to object to it."
So, find a way to fill up the tank and finish this thing out.
Okay? Because if we get discontinued...
fine, but it's going to be through
our cold, dead hands, okay?
I mean, don't we all agree that Brandon is absolutely worth it?
-Right? -BRENT: Yes, without question.
BRANDON: It's been a long five years,
a real long five years.
I've been waiting on my story to be told
because there's a lot of unsolved mysteries
in this case.
It's a big relief that trial is here
because we know that there's no more pushing trial back.
But I still am a superstitious person at the same time.
If we was to lose, I didn't prepare anything.
I paid the rent today to make sure
I have it for the next week.
I'd be lying to you if I told you
I didn't have no worries.
Once they find you guilty,
they put the handcuffs on you,
then no more getting a second chance at life.
At that point, once you're in that situation and behind those walls,
the worst feeling in the world is not being able to
come home to your family.
That would be the biggest thing.
BRENT: You have an investigation
that was so rife with problems,
and for reasons that have been
puzzling to us,
they have not decided
just to step back
from these charges.
I feel very tied to Brandon.
One of the reasons that I became an attorney was,
to put myself as a Black man in places where
we're traditionally on the other side of the aisle,
as a defendant,
and wanting to represent them,
to work at rooting out the biases,
dispelling the stereotypes.
That is my calling.
(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)
All right, I think that's good.
I think I can run through it. You wanna run through it? Can we print this real fast?
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
my client Brandon
was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You're going to hear from several people
called by the State
to testify that Brandon was standing next to De'Lanzo Veal
at the time he was shot.
That's all you'll hear them say.
You will not hear one person
say in this case,
one person called to testify,
that will say that they saw Brandon with a gun,
or that they saw him shoot anyone.
All the scientific evidence supports
Brandon's innocence.
No gun, no eyewitnesses,
no DNA.
My hope is also,
that at the end of the day,
you'll see Brandon for what he is,
sitting right over there,
which is an innocent man
wrongfully charged with murder.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Not guilty of murder.
Please pay close attention to the evidence.
Thank you for your attention.
ADAM: Some negative came out of Brandon's statement.
When Brandon is interviewed by the police,
the prosecution seemed to focus in on the fact
that he said he could defend himself.
Brandon says that,
if he would have perceived a threat,
he would have used his knife.
But it's not something we're super-concerned about.
We tried to hammer home how important body cameras are
to instill trust in the investigation,
to secure the accurate reporting of events.
Right? You don't turn them off throughout the entire encounter.
It came together real nice and we're excited about it thus far.
ADAM: During his testimony, he seemed to get a little
agitated with me and his face turned really red,
and he got real defensive.
He testified that
he takes another police officer's bodycam from the crime scene
because we were going to investigate a fight.
A knife fight or something that had nothing to do
at all with the shooting.
BRENT: It doesn't make sense. You've got a shooting,
and then you've got a potential fight.
So, it was a very good day.
Was able to relay that
this investigation, it's subpar on almost every level.
Rife with violation of policies.
ADAM: I worry about the jury.
That's my only fear at this point.
That's always scary.
ADAM: Today we start the defense case.
Now we've got to establish that the police investigation
was flawed from the start.
It's a bold move,
but one we think that will pay off.
He basically said the police officers
had represented on numerous occasions
that their body cameras didn't exist.
Had failed to produce the information requested on numerous occasions.
He basically realized that they'd been lying to me about this body camera footage
and suggested they just start from scratch.
Reinvestigate the case,
and charges against my client be dropped.
There were several members of the jury who I just saw had their jaws dropped
by the time he was done reading from that piece of paper.
It's been the highlight of the defense.
It's a lot of pressure,
but at the end of the day,
you've just got to stay patient
and stay positive through all of that.
A lot of my family is supposed to be coming.
So, you know, that's a big support.
I know that they have my back.
They've been putting in a lot of extra prayers.
That's what kept me going through a lot of this situation, too, kept me positive.
BRENT: The point in time where the prosecution rested their case
was startling for everyone in the courtroom,
quite honestly.
Everyone was waiting for information, for some evidence
that would support why we're all there.
And it just didn't happen.
So, it was peculiar.
Sometimes you just want to cut off the bloodletting,
and I think that's what they wanted to do.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
(TRIUMPHANT MUSIC PLAYING)
-Love you, homie. -I love you, too.
-Yes, sir. Yes, sir. -Well, we got it done.
-BRANDON: Man, you didn't want to lose neither. -(BOTH LAUGH)
My son.
BRANDON: We kept our faith strong.
It got a little rocky, but we stayed strong.
Even though we won,
someone has still lost their life,
so it's never still a situation to where you just celebrate.
My hope for the future is to just be thankful for life.
Everything in my life could have been taken
in the blink of an eye
by doing a life sentence.
There no coming back from that,
and I thank God for every step.
ADAM: The feeling's great.
The most remarkable thing about the case
I think was the fact that it had to be tried.
I don't think in other parishes this case would've been tried.
BRANDON: Now we can move on,
and enjoy my life with my family,
my nieces and nephews,
friends and everybody else.