Robbery victims testify in murder trial of man accused in Fort Worth police officer’s death
Pascual Soria was outside a house in Fort Worth where relatives were grilling food and drinking beer. Two men with guns approached for a robbery.
Soria intended to run to alert others when he was shot in the back.
Soria testified on Tuesday in 396th District Court that he felt as if, “I was going to die.” He told his brother to take care of his child, a boy with whom his wife was pregnant. She hid inside the house in a closet.
Soria was taken to a hospital and released after five days.
On Tuesday, he recalled the August 2018 robbery and shooting for jurors in the trial of Timothy Huff, who was indicted on capital murder of a peace officer in a related crime. Soria testified that Huff was present for the robbery, but that a second man shot him.
The trial is set to continue next Tuesday, and State District Judge George Gallagher told jurors that it is possible that they will deliberate then.
Marco Guzman, a victim in another robbery in which prosecutors allege Huff participated, was kneeling near his safe at El Sombrero in Fort Worth on the night the robbers came to his bar in 2018.
The men took $2,500, but Guzman survived.
Weeks later, a Fort Worth officer was not so lucky.
Officer Garrett Hull was fatally shot in September 2018 while he and his team were surveilling a group of men suspected in a string of robberies targeting Hispanic-run businesses and Soria and his relatives in Fort Worth.
On the night of Sept. 13, 2018, Fort Worth police say, Timothy Huff, Dacion Steptoe and Samuel Mayfield robbed Los Vaqueros bar at gunpoint. As the suspects ran from the area, Steptoe shot Hull. Steptoe was killed when another Fort Worth officer returned fire. Mayfield was also indicted on capital murder of a peace officer.
Monday began the second week of Huff’s trial, which was delayed in late May after Huff swallowed razor blades.
Huff’s defense attorneys, William Harris and Patrick Curran, have argued that Huff may not have been involved in the robberies, and witness descriptions of the suspects varied from robbery to robbery.
Prosecutors on Monday presented witnesses who testified about the three robbery suspects, including Huff.
Prosecutors have emphasized that while Huff did not pull the trigger of the gun that killed Hull, he is guilty of capital murder because he should have anticipated the possibility that someone would be killed during the robberies.
Senior forensic biologist Kristen Hammonds told the jury of nine women and five men, which includes two alternates, on Monday that DNA results showed that Huff was wearing gloves and a black ski mask that placed him at the scene on the night that Hull was killed.
Hammonds, who works at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office, testified that DNA results also showed that Steptoe and Mayfield were there that night.
The robbery group was accused of targeting Hispanics at several Fort Worth bars, stealing money, jewelry, credit cards, driver’s licenses, identification and debit cards.
Fort Worth Officer James Van Gorkom told the jury Monday that authorities seized evidence from vehicles and the home of one of the suspects after their arrests, gathering stolen debit and credit cards.
Van Gorkom noted that a rifle also was taken from the scene by authorities.
On Monday afternoon, several witnesses told the jury of being robbed at a Fort Worth bar during the summer of 2018.
Abigail Briones was a bartender in June 2018 at one Fort Worth bar.
“One person came in and he had a gun,” Briones told the jury, speaking in Spanish. “And then others were behind him. I went to the floor to hide, but they found me and one dragged me around.”
Briones said the robbers took her cell phone and $600.
“I was very nervous,” she said, “And I was frightened.”
A few days later, Guzman, the bar owner of El Sombrero, saw one suspect and tried to close the door.
“But I didn’t lock it and they came in,” Guzman testified Monday. “They told all of us in the bar to get on the floor and that’s when they took everything.”
Prosecutors alerted the judge Monday that they were having problems contacting Huff’s mother to be a witness in the trial, which she had attended several times last week.
Huff’s mother was given until Tuesday to appear.
No trial date has been set for Mayfield, according to Tarrant County criminal court records.
This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 5:16 PM.
