Jury to deliberate in Streator drug bust shooting

A jury will decide Thursday whether Courtney Perkins tried to kill a drug agent when he fired into a September drug bust in Streator – or whether Perkins was justified in pulling the trigger.

Prosecutors and Perkins’ lawyer rested Wednesday following a limited volume of testimony in La Salle County Circuit Court, where Perkins could face the equivalent of a life sentence. Perkins, 21, of Streator, is on trial for multiple felonies led by attempted murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm.

[ Day 1: Perkins fired toward drug agent, witness says ]

In wrapping up their case, prosecutors played the video-recorded statement Perkins gave the Tri-County Drug Enforcement Narcotics Team on Sept. 29, a short time after Perkins opened fire during a controlled buy.

In the taped interview, Perkins admitted, yes, he fired a lone shot – his .22-caliber pistol jammed immediately after – during a scuffle between Alaina Cravatta, whom Perkins knew, and a man unknown to him outside a Streator car wash.

But Perkins said the the shot was an act of “self defense” – actually a misstatement of the “defense of others” argument – and said he couldn’t know the man, later identified as Bernie Larsen, was a drug agent placing Cravatta into custody. Perkins simply wanted Larsen to untangle himself from Cravatta.

“I was trying to get him off,” Perkins told police in a recorded statement.

That will be the last jurors hear from Perkins. After prosecutors rested Wednesday, Perkins advised Chief Judge H. Chris Ryan Jr. he would not take the stand.

Closing arguments begin Thursday morning and Perkins’ lawyer, Chicago defense attorney Charles Snowden, will argue prosecutors fell short of their burden of proof.

Snowden said earlier at trial that prosecutors wrongly accused Perkins of trying to kill agent Larsen – a “classic case of over-charging,” he told jurors – and neither Larsen nor a second agent at the scene, James Mandujano, had a sufficiently reliable view to say where, or at whom, Perkins was aiming.

“They’re trying to sell you a bill of goods,” Snowden said in his opening statement.

Snowden also told jurors they could be presented with a defense of others instruction. If allowed, the jury could consider the possibility Perkins fired at Larsen, who was in plain clothes, after mistaking him for a mugger or assailant.

But prosecutors contend those arguments fly in the face of evidence showing Perkins put together the drug deal and then arrived armed knowing there was a chance the exchange ($350 for 20 ecstasy pills) might go south.

Though it was Cravatta who showed up at the car wash and made the exchange, prosecutors said Perkins was observing the transfer from a short distance and with a .22-caliber pistol at the ready.

One disputed issue is whether Perkins was close enough to hear Larsen utter a key phrase: “Police, you’re under arrest.” Larsen testified he said it loudly – it was the signal for his armed comrades to swoop in – and within seconds a shot rang out.

“I looked immediately to where the sound of the gunfire came from,” Larsen testified Tuesday. “I saw a Black male subject standing 10 to 15 yards away pointing a pistol right at me.”

Mandujano testified later he saw Perkins take aim. Mandujano then watched as Perkins scooped up the fallen money and drugs from the ground and then sprinted away. He was captured a short distance away.

Jurors were instructed to report at 8:15 a.m. Thursday.