Jurors see teenage Lincoln police story unfold at murder trial

Jurors on Thursday saw firsthand how Kashawan McCree’s statement to two Lincoln police officers slowly unfolded in a Detroit interrogation room on April 6, 2023, less than a week later. Damien Brave was fatally shot at a house party in Lincoln.

McCree was sitting, bent over so much he was almost lying down, when Officer Jason Drager and Sgt. Mike Ripley entered the room after they tracked his phone to a town about 800 miles away where his father lives.

McCree pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and pulled it tight.

Drager said there was an incident in Lincoln.

“Some very bad things happened. Your name came up and we want to discuss it with you, okay,” he said before reading McCree his Miranda rights.

“We need your side of the story, man,” Ripley told him.

McCree is a 19-year-old teenager who is accused of first degree murder of Braiva at a house party full of teenagers near North 27th and Fair Streets — said his cousin’s birthday was in a few days, so they had a party the night before on Friday, March 31.

“Everyone get fired up. Be cool. So I don’t know why they mention my damn name, my damn name, when something like that happened at a party,” he said.

McCree said he and his buddies brought the bottles and lured people in without paying the $5.

“So I’m a bad guy?” he said.

McCree said he wasn’t in the mood to party and was sick of the booze and weed in the back room when they heard a commotion, “white girl, what was that?”

He said people ran to the door and he went out the front door.

The next day, McCree said, he got a call from his cousin who said police told her they had witnesses who said he did it.

“I don’t even know the people that were at the party,” he said of Brave and his friends who came along. – I don’t even know them.

McCree left for Detroit the next day. His mother called, asked where he was and told him to turn himself in.

“Why did anyone tell us they saw you with a gun that night?” Drager asked about half an hour into the interview.

“I was stuffed in the room. So I want to know why everybody started going after me, like woohoo,” McCree said.

In the 39th minute, he went down to the floor and lay down in a corner.

“Tell me why the shooting happened. I don’t know that,” Ripley said. – What happened?

McCree, who sat down, said he didn’t know.

Ripley said they have messages from McCree to one woman where he said, “I smoked him.”

“But I didn’t do that stupid thing, and I didn’t say I did that stupid thing,” McCree said.

Ripley said, “I’ll be honest with you, we have about 10 people who say you shot him.”

McCree said he never met him and never had a gun.

Fast forward four minutes and McCree begins to tell a different story. He said there was a dude in the kitchen, Brave, who said he wanted some weed and then showed a gun in his waistband. He said they started fighting.

“He took the first shot,” McCree said.

He said Brave fired once, then fired once and ran.

This view was disputed by witnesses, none of whom put a gun in Brave’s hands.

In the interview, Drager asked McCree what was on his mind.

“I didn’t want to kill him. But it got to me,” McCree said.

Police found three shell casings, all fired from the same gun, with McCree’s DNA on them, according to police.

The trial is expected to continue next week.