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Ksoo, who is heavy-set and at least 6′ tall, stood for the court as his attorney showed a photo of the shooter. An eyewitness was also questioned.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The trial of Jacksonville rapper Hakeem Robinson, also known as Ksoo, kicked off on Wednesday with his lawyer challenging the video evidence presented by the police, which allegedly captures the murder he is being charged with.
The victim, Charles McCormick, was shot dead in a shopping center on Merrill Road in January 2020.
The crime took place in the middle of the day, with numerous witnesses present. One of these witnesses managed to record the event on a dashcam installed in their vehicle.
In her opening remarks on Wednesday, Robinson’s lawyer, Tara Kawass, highlighted the discrepancies between Robinson’s current appearance and the individual seen in the dashcam footage.
She had Robinson stand for the court for several minutes.
While Robinson is 6′ and heavier set, Kawass said the man in the video is estimated to be between 5’5″ and 5’11”, with some witnesses saying he was between 5’5″ and 5’8″.
“They are going to ask you to not believe your eyes,” she said.
Kawass said that when Robinson was brought in, police hadn’t realized his body type was so different. She argued that they could have let him go, but instead they “doubled down.”
The eyewitness whose dashcam recorded the shooting was the first witness called in the trial. He was questioned after opening statements Wednesday.
He told the court the jumpsuit the killer was wearing was baggy and that he couldn’t distinguish physical features. He said he couldn’t reliably say whether the shooter was a man or a woman, though based on what he saw and the way the person moved, he believed it was a man.
He described the shooter as “slim.” Robinson’s other attorney, Chris DeCoste, asked the witness if he had previously described the shooter as “very slim.” When the witness said he did not know if he had said that, DeCoste provided deposition documents where he had done so.
During his opening statement, Assistant State Attorney Joel Cooper Jr. told the jury the video would be only one piece of a “puzzle” of evidence. He noted that the jury would not see the face of the shooter, who is completely covered in the video.
