OAKLAND — Alameda County prosecutors on Wednesday dropped all charges against a man accused of being a lookout during a burglary that ended with the shooting death of Oakland police Officer Tuan Le.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office will no longer pursue a trio of second-degree burglary charges against 35-year-old Marquise Cooper. The move comes just weeks after a judge tossed the murder case against Cooper, citing prosecutors’ inability to prove that he was a “major participant” in the officer’s late-December death.
Cooper remained in custody Wednesday morning amid allegations he violated probation on a burglary case out of Contra Costa County. Still, Cooper’s attorney said he was “glad” the Alameda DA’s Office dropped its case against him.
“From the beginning of this case we’ve maintained Marquise’s innocence to the murder charge,” said the attorney, Ernie Castillo. “Marquise and his family look forward to (him) getting home soon.”
Three other people — Mark Demetrious Sanders, Allen Starr Brown and Sebron Russell — remained held without bail Wednesday in the death of Le, who was working as an undercover officer on Dec. 29 when he was fatally shot while responding to a series of break-ins along the city’s waterfront.
A judge in mid-August found that enough evidence existed for the men to stand trial for murder. No trial date has been set, and all three men pleaded not guilty earlier this year.
Authorities claim Sanders, Brown and Russell carried out multiple break-ins before dawn on Dec. 29 at a marijuana grow house on the 400 block of Embarcadero. Le and his partner responded to the warehouse twice that morning. The second time was around 4:30 a.m., when at least seven burglars streamed out of the ransacked grow house and fled in multiple vehicles.
The officers, who were wearing plainclothes and driving an unmarked Nissan pickup, initially followed one of the cars as it pulled out of the warehouse’s parking lot. That car allegedly contained Russell, according to court testimony.
Moments later, prosecutors suspect Brown pulled another car behind the officers while Sanders sprayed at least 22 rounds at their pickup. Le was shot in the head, and he died hours later at Highland Hospital. His death marked the first killing of an on-duty Oakland police officer in roughly 15 years.
Cooper was parked parked on the other side of Interstate 880, where he was allegedly acting as a lookout during the final break-in of the morning, according to court testimony. In tossing the murder charge against him, Alameda County Judge Delia Trevino said Cooper shouldn’t face murder charges, because he couldn’t see Le’s truck when the officer arrived at the grow house, or when he was shot.