Marquis Wright was smoking a cigarette in the driveway of his uncle’s home when he saw Memphis police officer Sean Bolton struggling with a suspect and then saw that man shoot the officer.

Wright testified Wednesday about witnessing the shooting at the death penalty trial of Tremaine Wilbourn, the man arrested in the fatal shooting of Bolton on Aug. 1, 2015, in a neighborhood in Parkway Village.

Wilbourn, 32, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of 33-year-old Bolton, a Memphis Police Department officer for five years and a former Marine and Iraq War veteran.

The shooting happened across the street from Wright’s family’s house. He said on the night of the shooting, he was standing outside when he saw a burgundy Mercedes-Benz pull up and park on the street. About 10 minutes later, a squad car pulled up.

Wright said the driver of the car jumped out and ran when the officer put his spotlight on the car, but the passenger, who he pointed out in court as Wilbourn, remained on the scene.

“They were tussling,” Wright said.

He said Bolton didn’t say anything during the struggle or reach for his gun, but he heard Wilbourn yelling, “Record me, record me,” telling Wright to take a video of the incident.

He testified he saw Wilbourn push Bolton, then pull out a gun and shoot the officer.

“I ran in the house after that and got my uncle,” Wright said.

His uncle, Christopher Lanier, crawled to Bolton, who had been shot eight times including once in the face, and used the officer’s radio to call for help because he and other neighbors said they couldn’t get through to 911 that night. 

Wright was one of seven witnesses called to testify on the third day of Wilbourn's capital murder trial.

Another witness, who Judge Lee Coffee said could not be named or photographed because the man was afraid for his life, took the stand after lunch.

The man told the court he was driving the car in which Wilbourn was a passenger the night of the shooting.

He said Wilbourn, a childhood friend he knew as “T-Streetz,” wanted to go with him to “serve,” meaning to sell marijuana to one of his customers.

When asked by the defense if he was a drug dealer, the man said he had a day job and selling “weed” was more of a side job.

He said after they delivered the drugs to one of his customers they drove to his family’s house on Summerlane to get more marijuana.

As he weighed the drugs on a scale he had in the car, he said a light flashed on the car.

“I didn’t know who it was, but it was a big beam of light,” he said.

He then grabbed all the marijuana he could out of his girlfriend’s car that he was driving that night and ran.

“I ran by five or six houses and then I jumped a fence,” he said. He called one of his friends, who came to pick him up. He said he didn’t see the officer get shot and didn’t know what happened until he got to a hotel and saw it on the internet.

He said he then called his attorney, Leslie Ballin, and turned himself in to police, who took a statement. He also identified Wilbourn in a photo lineup as the passenger in the car.

When the hearing began Wednesday, the jury of 10 men and five women heard opening statements from the attorneys.

Prosecutor Alanda Dwyer began her opening statements by taking the jury to the night of the shooting in the 4800 block of Summerlane in the area of Cottonwood and South Perkins.

“He looked in the window and he could see drugs, he could see scales,” Dwyer said. “He had a 9mm in his waistband and he was not going to prison.”

Dwyer then played the 911 calls from that night, including when dispatchers and Bolton’s fellow officers could not get in touch with him after he left the alarm call.

One of those dispatchers, Lawana Stamps, took the stand Wednesday and testified about hearing a “brief scuffle” on the radio and then the last word Bolton spoke, “64,” referring to his squad car number, 364, and trying to alert dispatchers and officers he needed help.

Defense attorney Juni Ganguli, who is representing Wilbourn, didn’t dispute that Wilbourn, who was on federal probation for bank robbery at the time of the shooting, shot Bolton.

“Little did he know he would be pulled over, that there would be an altercation and a shooting,” Ganguli said. “Tremaine panicked and ran. He did not intend to shoot anyone.”

Earlier, before the jury was sworn in by Judge Lee Coffee, Wilbourn briefly took the stand and said he was going to testify during his trial. Coffee told Wilbourn he could change his mind about that decision as the trial proceeds.

The trial continues at 9 a.m. Thursday.