1. Two Sides of the Same Door

05/08/23 • 51 min

The first episode of Night Raid is a Rashomon of the 4am SWAT raid on the Martinez residence in San Gabriel. In a matter of seconds, David’s father was shot in the arm and Pomona SWAT officer Shaun Diamond was shot in the neck, and later died ... but who fired? Recordings of detective interviews show even police witnesses weren’t sure what happened in the critical moments when the SWAT team breached the front door. The episode includes an emotional interview with Shaun’s mother and letters from David’s sister ... showing how the shock of the incident devastated both families and how confusion about the narrative of the raid left them feeling powerless.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Introducing | Night Raid

Night Raid is a story about the tragic death of a Pomona SWAT officer ... and the story of the man accused of killing him.

Ask any public defender in the LA criminal courts to name the most complicated and heart-wrenching case in the past decade and almost everyone will tell you it’s The People vs. David Martinez. Ask the prosecutors and they’ll admit the case is tragic. But complicated? No. They say it’s murder plain and simple.

There is no dispute that Officer Shaun Diamond was a man of good character whose death is horrific ... or that David Martinez was affiliated with a motorcycle club that had conflicts with law enforcement. But Night Raid avoids a rush to judgment and considers all aspects of a very murky case. And in the process explores our own prejudices and preconceptions about cause and effect, guilt and innocence ... even punishment and redemption.

There are no videos of the raid and David Martinez isn’t an ACLU poster boy. He’s a family man with vices that may have contributed to the shotgun blast that killed Diamond on the night of October 28, 2014. In the eight episodes of Night Raid, we unravel the compelling story of The People vs. David Martinez - not just the events of David’s two trials but the reasons for the SWAT raid and the planning behind it, the relationship between David and the Mongols Motorcycle Club, and how the intertwined narratives of this story reflect larger issues in our judicial system. The series takes an intimate look at Diamond’s death through unprecedented access to search warrant materials and recordings of detective interviews with David’s family and other Pomona SWAT officers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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2. David's Story

By the end of Night Raid episode one, two conflicting stories emerged: the SWAT team says David Martinez shot Officer Shaun Diamond in the first moments of the raid on the house in San Gabriel, but David’s parents claim the officers shot their own man. Episode two places you on the scene as David’s story evolves from the seconds after the shooting to a pretrial conference three years later. You’ll hear the police dash cam audio, recordings in David’s holding cell, his interview with detectives, audio from undercover officers posing as inmates, jail phone calls, and reenactments of David’s preliminary hearing. Ultimately, the physical evidence leads us to the conclusion that David likely shot Officer Diamond; but did he pull the trigger in self defense, thinking the police were Mongols? With David’s trial on the horizon, his public defender Brady Sullivan is left with a near impossible task: convincing a jury that a man who shot a police officer from approximately five feet away is not guilty of murder.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.