In today’s opening statements in the murder trial of San Francisco journalist and filmmaker Kevin Epps, lawyers for the prosecution and defense presented wildly differing depictions of Marcus Polk, the homeless man Epps shot dead nine years ago.
Epps, 57, is a well-known documentary filmmaker from Hunters Point and the executive editor of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. He is charged with murder for killing Polk in 2016. Epps says it was self-defense, and that Polk came into his home.
But the District Attorney’s Office filed charges in 2019 after a forensic analyst suggested Polk had turned away from Epps at the time of the shooting.
In a dry, methodical opening statement, prosecutor Jonathan Schmidt presented Polk as a man close to Epps’ family, who frequently visited their Glen Park home. That he was inside Epps home, Schmidt implied, was not unusual.
But according to Epps’ attorney, Darlene Comstedt, Polk was taking meth at the time, violating his parole and persistently arriving unwelcome and uninvited at the home where Epps lived with Polk’s sister-in-law and their two children.
The basic chain of events is not in dispute. Both attorneys agreed that on the afternoon of Oct. 24, 2016, Polk had been outside Epps’ home, picking up trash, when he got into an argument with maintenance workers over using a neighbor’s trash bin.
The argument drew Epps, his partner Maryam Jhan, and Polk’s ex-wife, Starr Gul, outside briefly. When they returned to the house, Polk entered the home with them, even though Epps told him not to.
Moments later, Epps shot Polk in the arm and through his left-side lateral muscle, from at least two or three feet away.
Schmidt, the prosecutor, said Polk had been “trying to help out.” He showed images of Polk’s body and the location of his wounds on the screen, with the bullet exiting through the front of his chest.
Comstedt, meanwhile, said the family had already refused to let Polk inside the home earlier that afternoon and that Polk became aggressive.
“Marcus Polk began banging on the door … yelling to be let in … demanding to be let in,” Comstedt said. No one let him in. Later, after the argument over the trash, the defense attorney said, Polk “barged” into the house. “Ms. Jhan told him to leave, Mr. Epps told him to leave, Ms. Gul told him to leave, and he refused to leave.”
Inside, the confrontation happened “so fast,” Comstedt added, with Polk threatening and advancing on Epps before Epps shot him dead.
“As serious and as deadly as his actions were that day, they were justified. He had acted in self-defense,” Comstedt said. “At the end of this trial, we’re going to be asking you find Mr. Epps not guilty of the murder of Mr. Polk.”
Epps is charged with murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Epps’ defense team acknowledged that he is guilty of the latter charge.
Despite the pending charges, Epps has been out of jail for several years, which is unusual in a murder case. He sat somberly on Monday morning between his two attorneys. He wore a gray suit and jotted notes in a notepad.
The nine men and three women on the jury listened as Schmidt presented a family tree connecting Epps and Polk and their former partners, who are sisters.
At the time of the shooting in October 2016, Epps lived with his partner, Jhan, and their two young children in Glen Park. On the day of the shooting, Jhan’s sister, Gul, who was Polk’s ex-wife, was also at Epps’ home with their two children.
“When Mr. Epps shot an unarmed Mr. Polk from a distance of at least three feet in his upper rear left lat, in the middle of the day, in his sister-in-law’s house with his ex-wife and his daughter in the house — was that shooting legally justified?” Schmidt asked.
“I trust when you hear all the evidence, you’ll conclude that it wasn’t legally justified, it wasn’t necessary,” Schmidt said.
Even though Polk was in and out of jail, and homeless at the time of the shooting, and Epps was working as a filmmaker and living with his partner and two young children in an affluent San Francisco neighborhood, Schmidt attempted to paint the two as alike.
“Both, as you’ll hear, use drugs. Mr. Polk’s drug of choice was methamphetamine. Mr. Epps’ was marijuana,” Schmidt said, with images of both men side by side on the large screen facing the jury. “Both … had criminal convictions and were prohibited from possessing a gun.”
Polk was on parole at the time of the shooting, and in 2001 was convicted of lewd acts with a child, according to a court filing by the District Attorney’s Office last month summarizing the incident.
Epps, meanwhile, saw his most recent conviction in 2001, 15 years before the shooting, for selling drugs. He released the documentary “Straight Outta Hunters Point” two years after that, and “Sucker Free City” with Spike Lee in 2004.
Comstedt, the defense attorney, said Polk’s visits were unpleasant and occurred regularly.
Leading up to the shooting, she said “the frequency of which Marcus Polk would stop by … began to increase. He would knock at the door, sometimes in the middle of the night.” Visitors to the house would become “so uncomfortable by his behavior” that they would leave.
Just days before the shooting, Polk had been in county jail for violating his parole by using methamphetamine. Before and after that arrest, he was homeless.
Assistant District Attorney Schmidt called Gul and Polk’s relationship “complicated,” and suggested Polk had a way of saying things that got under her skin. But he described a friendly relationship in which Polk would appear at the home of Epps and Jhan, his former sister-in-law. She would offer him food or a place to shower.
“Life can turn on a dime, and it most certainly did that day,” Comstedt said.
In the coming days, jurors will hear from police officers at the scene of the shooting.
My name is Malik Washington and I find it strange that the double standard is still alive and well inside the City and County of San Francisco. What if Kevin Epps would have been a white man protecting his family from an unwanted intruder!!? Would he still be on trial for Murder?
So the Prosecutor is trying to paint Epps as a drug user for smoking weed, and making a comparison to Polk’s meth use? Seriously? There is no comparing the two.
Unless something more concrete than the DA presented comes to light, I can’t see a guilty verdict on the homicide charge. The D.A. has the burden to prove this shooting was NOT self-defense — will be tough to get a unanimous jury on that.
This seems like a pretty ridiculous trial. The fact that the DA would even mention Epps’ pot use or criminal record from 15 years ago as a way to compare him to a man addicted to meth who is actively committing crimes almost seems designed to get the jury on Epps’ side. I think without proof positive that Polk was running away when he was shot this seems like a really clear case of self defense. I imagine if I went around forcing my way into other people’s homes while their children were there, I’d end up shot sooner or later.
This is so sad. This is definitely self-defense, a man trying to protect his family should not be punished. Let Kevin along to raise his beautiful children and to continue his work in the community.
These people need to go out and get the real criminals, the ones that’s destroying the city. They need to clean up the neighborhoods.
Brook Jenkins has spoken.
Hero