‘Honest as I can be’: Downtown Sacramento shooting victim’s memory at odds with past statement

Defense attorney Meghan Cunningham let out an exasperated sound Monday, leaning back in her chair, after wrapping up more than two hours of legal wrangling with a victim of Sacramento’s worst mass shooting, which left six dead and injured 12 people.

Cunningham, who represents defendant Smiley Martin, repeatedly played scant seconds of videos taken moments before gunfire broke out from two groups gathered at 10th and K streets. Witness Oshe White, who was struck by bullets April 3, 2022, but survived, either couldn’t recall or disputed Cunningham’s narration of events depicted in the footage.

It was just one of about a dozen times White said he couldn’t recall answers to questions Monday.

As an uncooperative witness, White has been ordered to be placed in custody to compel his testimony. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right when he first took the stand last week.

Defendants Martin, his brother Dandrae Martin and Mtula Payton have been charged in the mass shooting.

White previously testified that a man wearing a sweater with the word “Backwoods” stopped to question him. White turned away, and the rounds lodged in his spine, making it so he didn’t know who fired the gun, he said.

Prosecutors played a video in which groups of people were congregated around Sharif Jewelers about 3 a.m. The crowd could be seen scattering as shooting victims fell to the ground, some failing to get up.

Another video showed people yelling out anxiously as gunshots ripped through the air.

“I didn’t even know I was hit until I tried to get up and run,” White said.

Cunningham attempted to establish it was White and his cousin, Sergio Harris, who instigated the shooting — an allegation refuted by White. Harris died in the shooting.

Cunningham sought to prove the video showed White’s back wasn’t turned and he was instead next to Harris when seven bullets were fired. It was White who confronted a group, which sparked a conflict, she suggested through her line of questioning.

White testified he didn’t recall the bullets being fired next to him or arguing with anyone.

“Is your lack of recalling this because you know you would be in big trouble if you were part of the instigation of those gunshots?” Cunningham said.

“No ma’am, I have nothing to do with it,” White testified. “I honestly do not remember those shots going off.”

The exchange was one of several times Cunningham tried to sow doubt about White’s testimony and his recollection of what happened that night.

White, questioned by prosecutor Brad Ng, testified he didn’t lie to Sacramento police officers when a detective interviewed him two days after suffering gunshot wounds to his back from the shooting. But when asked to confirm what he told the detective about defendant Payton pulling a gun on him, White said Monday he could not remember.

“So you were lying to the detective,” Cunningham said.

“I guess so, in that,” White said.

White went clubbing in downtown Sacramento nearly every weekend two years ago and testified about how different gangs also frequented the area.

Cunningham also played a video of White at London nightclub on 10th Street dancing with women and looking at Harris. But White maintained on the stand several times that he didn’t recall seeing Harris at the club prior to the shooting outside.

“I’ma be so honest,” White testified. “Nine times out of 10, I am not looking at no man in the club. I am looking at a female.”

“You’re not just being honest about having seeing (Sergio Harris) that night, are you?” Cunningham said.

“I am being as honest as I can be, ma’am, I don’t know what you want from me,” White said.

White’s cross examination was scheduled to continue April 30, after which the preliminary hearing will continue in August.