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The invitation to the house party on Baron Drive arrived in Jordan Edwards’ hands sometime before April 29, 2017 — the night of the gathering.
Though he was a bit of a wallflower, Edwards, 15, really wanted to hang out with his friends. So he convinced his brothers, Kevon Edwards and Vidal Allen, to go with him.
Allen took one for the team and asked their dad for permission.
Yes, he said. But stay out of trouble. Don’t do any drugs and don’t drink.
The boys knew the routine, and they knew to be home by curfew.
Allen drove the brothers, and their two friends — Maximus and Maxwell, twins who “look exactly alike” — in their dad’s 2004 Impala.
They made a pit stop on their way to Balch Springs to buy snacks.
Jordan bought hot chips and a strawberry lemonade, Allen said.
They got back into the car and Jordan decided to go back into the store for a pack of gum.
His girlfriend was probably at the party. He didn’t want his breath smelling like hot chips, Allen said.
In three hours, the boys would be back in that Impala.
But it’d be damaged with five bullet holes, and Jordan would be dead.
The story of what happened that night unfolded during the first day of Roy Oliver’s murder trial. He’s accused of shooting at the Impala five times as Allen tried to drive away.
Oliver, 38, was an officer at the Balch Springs Police Department at the time of the shooting. He and Officer Tyler Gross were sent to Baron Drive to break up an unruly party. Oliver is also charged with murder and two counts of aggravated assault for shooting into the vehicle.
‘Everyone was having a good time’
Teenagers from at least four schools were at the party.
Jordan Edwards and his brothers went to Mesquite High School, where he and Allen played for the Skeeters football team.
Edwards wore No. 11. Allen wears that number now.
But a year and four months ago, they paid a $2 entry free to get into the house.
“Everyone was joyful and happy,” Allen said. “There were no problems. Everyone was having a good time.”
It was really crowded, he said. Gross, who testified before Allen, said roughly 150 to 300 kids were in the house, or around the yard.
Allen and a friend went to the back of the house and lost sight of Edwards at some point.
“He was hugging the wall,” Allen said of his younger brother.
None of the boys drank. Allen said he smelled marijuana at one point, but didn’t smoke any.
When the cops showed up at around 11 p.m., Allen and a friend jumped a few fences to get back to their car, parked at Baron Drive and Shepherd Lane. Edwards was there, along with the twins, Allen said.
What they didn’t know was that as officers Gross and Oliver were inside the house talking to the boy who threw the party, someone fired 12 shots at the nearby Balch Springs Nursing Home.
The nursing home is at the end of the street, near where Edwards and Allen were parked.
Along with testimony from Allen and Gross, jurors also watched the body camera footage captured by Gross and Oliver during the call.
The video started when the officers arrived. They went through the house as partygoers start running out. They made jokes about it.
“It’s like a sardine can,” Oliver said. “They just keep coming out.”
“Nice mustache,” one girl said to Oliver in passing. He thanked her.
Once inside, and at 11:17 p.m., the 12 shots were heard. The officers ran out of the house. Gross said on Thursday that his goal was to find a suspect, and identify any possible victims.
They had just potentially sent hundreds of teenagers onto the street with an active shooter, after all.
Oliver ran to his car first, grabbed his rifle and ran behind Gross. Gross didn’t grab his rifle.
As the officers ran toward the nursing home, Allen tried to drive away. He said he turned down Baron, but the two police cars were blocking his way, so he began to back onto Shepherd Lane.
Gross said some people on the street pointed toward Allen’s car — which would have been near the nursing home. Gross headed to the car and commanded the driver to stop. He said he didn’t know who was inside, or if they were teenagers.
“Stop the f***ing car,” Gross could be heard yelling on video.
Allen said he didn’t know what was happening.
Asked by defense attorney Bob Gill why he didn’t stop the car when Gross shouted at them, Allen said, “We don’t know who said that.”
“Police don’t talk like that,” Allen said. “The profanity. Police don’t say that, sir, especially not to kids.”
He said he didn’t see either officer when he was backing up and didn’t try to run over anyone.
But Oliver said after the shooting that he believed Allen was trying to back into Gross.
At 11:18:33, the car started to move away from Oliver. One second later, Edwards said the last three words he’d ever speak.
“Duck, get down.”
At that moment, Gross tried to grab the Impala and he broke one of its windows with his handgun. Oliver started to shoot.
The second round hit Edwards in the back of his head.
All five rounds were discharged in .934 seconds, Prosecutor Michael Snipes said.
‘I wasn’t in fear’
Though Oliver’s defense before his arrest was that he feared for their lives because the car in which Edwards sat was moving backward toward them, body camera footage and witnesses told the opposite story.
In the body camera footage, the car is seen slowly moving backwards, back onto Shepherd. Gross said the vehicle then drove past him.
After he stopped shooting, Oliver asked Gross if he was OK. Gross said yes, and Oliver responded, “He was trying to hit you.”
“I was not in fear at that point,” Gross testified.
One of the defense attorneys asked Gross to act out how close he was to the car when he hit the window.
Using a tape measure, he determined that the officer was about 20 inches from the car, and he argued that Oliver’s point of view could have led him to believe that Gross was about to be run over. And, because he was behind Gross, it was Oliver’s duty to protect his partner.
The defense attorney also brought up a previous statement in which Gross said he was fearful, but Gross refuted that.
“I was in fear that the vehicle was close to me,” the officer responded. “I didn’t think the vehicle was going to run me over.”
‘I prayed’
Sitting in the back of a police cruiser after his brother was shot in the head, Allen prayed.
He asked the officer who sat up front to pray with him. And he did.
Allen couldn’t remember Thursday exactly what he said in that prayer.
“I just prayed that my brother would be OK,” he said. “I asked God to take care of him.”
Allen said when he heard the five gunshots, he drove away and checked to see if his friends and brothers were OK. But he saw blood, and had to move Edwards’ head, he said.
As he continued to drive away, a police car drove quickly past them, and Allen turned around to get help from that officer, he testified.
When both cars stopped, the officer made Allen and the three other boys in the car get out with their hands up.
“They made me walk backwards … they put me in handcuffs and put me in the car,” Allen said. “... We were pleading for them to please help my brother.”
Kevon Edwards said it didn’t immediately register with him that Jordan Edwards was dead.
When he realized it, he said he was heartbroken.
Oliver was fired from the Balch Springs department on May 2, 2017, for violating department policies. He joined the department in 2011 after being an officer with the Dalworthington Gardens Police Department for almost a year. Before that he was a dispatcher in Dalworthington Gardens.
Court documents previously released said that Oliver “flipped off” Allen’s car after he shot it.
Snipes said that when Oliver grabbed his rifle, he knew he was going to use it. He said Oliver was angry and dangerous that night.
The trial continues Friday morning.
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