A lawyer for Jeremy Davis argued Tuesday he only punched Allen Flores after the man drunkenly propositioned his girlfriend, lightly hit Davis, then spat on him.
Davis and his girlfriend were sitting in a vehicle in front of their apartment Nov. 13, 2021, on the 2800 block of DeKalb Street in Lake Station. The local watering hole, Kimmie’s Bar, was across the street. When they saw Flores walking toward them, Davis tried to roll up his window, and Flores put his hand over it to block him.
Once Davis got out of his vehicle, Flores pushed him back. Davis punched him once; Flores fell back and hit his head. Davis helped move him off the street but assumed he would wake up and shake it off.
At the hospital, Flores died of a massive brain injury.
“This was an accident,” his lawyer Robert Varga told jurors Tuesday.
Davis, 43, was charged in 2021 with aggravated battery and battery resulting in serious bodily injury. Prosecutors added involuntary manslaughter in January 2024. He has pleaded not guilty.
Deputy Prosecutor Shannon Phillips admitted Flores was “intoxicated” and said “offensive” things to Davis’ girlfriend.
Davis hit Flores so hard near his eye, he broke two of Flores’ teeth, she said.
Stephanie Martinez, Davis’ girlfriend, lied to the cops, saying she didn’t know who hit Flores, Phillips said. Martinez had messaged Flores’ fiance on Facebook to say he got punched. Later on, she went to the police station and told the truth. Davis went to the cops and told the same story. No one called 911, she said. Martinez went back to the bar, while Davis went home.
Varga, representing Davis with co-counsel Tom Olson, told jurors he did “not really disagree” with Phillips’ account, however, it “glazed over critical facts.”
Flores was “belligerent”, appeared drunk and had cocaine in his system, Varga said. Someone did call 911.
What happened was an “unintended consequence,” he said, adding they didn’t know what preexisting conditions might have aggravated what happened.
Davis helped pull him off the street – “the fight was over by that point” – so he wouldn’t get hit by a car. Defense lawyers were able to find another witness who saw the whole thing and backed up Davis’ account, Varga said.
Even if Flores acted like a “fool,” he was sympathetic to his family’s suffering, Varga said. What he did was “completely justified” in self-defense.
On the stand, Gloria Bey, 63, Flores’ mother, emotionally recalled she was in Las Vegas visiting her mother when her other son called to say Flores was in the hospital.
“It didn’t look like my son,” she said.
He never regained consciousness. Eventually, she made the call to take him off life support.
Deputy Prosecutor Lindsey Lanham is trying the case with Phillips. Judge Natalie Bokota is presiding.
The trial continues this week.
mcolias@post-trib.com
