When one half of a neighborhood dispute failed to answer their knock on the door that day in September, Odessa Police Cpl. Gary Potter said he and a fellow officer decided to stick around in case the dispute erupted again.
It did.
Potter was the first witness on the stand Tuesday in the trial of Nathan Peter Gordon, 31.
Gordon is facing five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the 358th Ector County District Court.
Potter told jurors he was working patrol last September when he received a call about 11 p.m. about a dispute at an apartment complex in the 4600 block of Oakwood Drive. When he and another officer arrived, they were told Gordon was creating problems with neighbors who lived below his second story apartment. After speaking with the neighbors, they went upstairs, knocked on Gordon’s door twice and announced they were with the police department. He didn’t come to the door.
About 45 minutes later, Potter said he and Officer Bandy Blackmon were still in the parking lot when a second 911 call came in from the same neighbors.
As they ran toward the apartment, Potter said he heard “very, very loud screaming” and a man yelling “Ready!” in Spanish.
He also heard a man, using expletives, yelling for someone to go ahead and call the police.
As he looked upstairs, Potter said he saw a man waving around a machete and he heard Blackmon yelling “Show me your hands! Show me your hands!”
The man, later identified as Gordon, yelled back “I ain’t go no hands” and then turned and went back into his apartment.
Assistant Ector County District Attorney William Prasher, who is trying the case with colleague Carmen Villalobos, told jurors during opening statements Gordon was arrested four hours later after police used tear gas to gain entry into his apartment.
Prasher said the whole event started when Gordon became upset that two women were chatting outside their first floor apartment and may have gotten a little loud. The women were so frightened by Gordon confronting them, they called police and then a few family members.
In all, five people were there when Gordon began harassing them again, this time with a machete, Prasher said.
Defense attorney Kevin Acker waived his opening statement.
