A jury will begin deciding today who was the aggressor in a barroom brawl that led to the death of Eugene Bryant III a year ago.
Attorneys Tuesday alternately said the aggressor was Bryant, who was killed in the fight, and Thomas Ray Jackson Jr., 29, of Everett, who is on trial for Bryant’s murder.
It was Jackson who pulled the knife that killed Bryant after the two faced off over treatment of Bryant’s girlfriend at a south Everett bar. The knife surfaced in the midst of what deputy prosecutor Randy Yates called a “volatile situation that he created.”
The defense has a different spin on the slaying.
It was Bryant who rushed Jackson, pushing him across the bar and into a men’s restroom, where the two engaged in a fatal struggle for the knife.
Public defender Jon Scott told jurors in closing arguments that the evidence of the weeklong trial shows it was self-defense.
Before the fatal fight, Bryant and Jackson faced off without blows being thrown. Jackson had been tickling Bryant’s girlfriend, and he refused to stop when asked. Bryant backed Jackson into a booth at the Wok Restaurant in the 600 block of 112th Street SE. Jackson viewed that as a public insult and wanted to get even, Yates said.
After that, Yates said evidence showed Bryant became upset, started pacing and later threatened Jackson. When Bryant went to a nearby convenience store for cigarettes, he returned to find Jackson bothering his girlfriend again, Yates told jurors.
Jackson pulled the knife, Yates alleged, “because he intended to kill Eugene Bryant.”
Defense attorney Scott disagreed.
Jackson pulled out his work knife to protect himself when he faced an angry Bryant, who was being held back by his girlfriend and who had taken off his shirt to prepare for a fight, Scott said.
He “took the knife out to signal to (Bryant) to go away,” Scott said. The knife was telling Bryant, “Don’t come at me, because I have a knife.”
Maybe he should have gone home after the first confrontation, Scott said. “If he had it to do over again, perhaps he would have,” Scott said. “But the law doesn’t impose on him a duty to retreat.”
Jackson is charged with first-degree murder. Besides acquittal, jurors could find him guilty of second-degree murder or first-degree manslaughter.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Cowsert let the jury go home after closing arguments. The panel will begin deliberations this morning.
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