Carmen DeCruz changes statement, adds that Michael Dean may have had a gun, jurors have heard on the fifth day of the former police officer’s trial.

BELTON, Texas (KWTX) – The first official week of Carmen DeCruz’s trial ended today in Belton.

A former Temple police officer is on trial for second-degree murder in the 2019 shooting and killing of Michael Dean, an unarmed black man.

Friday morning began with brief testimony from Texas Ranger and lead investigator Travis Dendy.

The jury played a series of interviews between Dendy and Carmen DeCruz that were recorded the night of Michael Dean’s death.

Notably, DeCruz says he doesn’t know how the gun fired.

He was allowed to watch the body camera footage again and then changed his statement to say that Dean had reached for the gun.

Dandy’s testimony has been cut short, but we expect him next week.

We then heard testimony from three separate forensic scientists who handled the evidence in the case.

Scientist Jeffrey Kelly noted that in order for Dean to fire the weapon, he had to release two separate safety mechanisms before firing.

Scientist Agatha Eason stated that based on DNA tests, Dean had no direct contact with DeCruz’s gun.

The last forensic scientist we heard from, Elinor Hehir, refined DeCruz’s body camera footage through a series of analyses.

Stabilization, exposure enhancement and video enhancement were all done by him.

These results were shown to the jury.

The last two testimonies we heard were from members of the Temple Police Department.

About De. 2, 2019, Sergeant Thomas Richeson arrived on the scene and was assigned to guard DeCruz.

After viewing Richeson’s body camera footage, jurors learned that DeCruz had made a phone call to her daughter.

Two minutes into the hearing, Richeson asks to turn off his body camera because he was not part of the investigation at the time.

That’s it, and the video ends there.

Richeson was followed by Lieutenant Timothy Simeroth.

We didn’t get to hear much from Simerot before the day was over, but the state attorney did play the police scanner recording when DeCruz initially called for help.

“He just hit my car” and “Cefco on a loop” were DeCruz’s last words on the scanner.

After this, the court announced a break for a day.

Earlier in the week, Judge Paul Lepack predicted that a sentence would not be handed down until next week’s hearing.

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