After ninety minutes, Donner sat down. The prosecution rested its main case after presenting the forensic evidence and the testimony concerning the report discrepancies. Puit's defense then called officers who described the uncertainty of street work and the training that encouraged officers to investigate suspicious circumstances. Some witnesses spoke sincerely about the dangers they had faced during their careers. But even they were careful not to claim that every situation justified detention, and a training supervisor acknowledged that a clean vehicle registration and a credible explanation should normally cause an officer to reconsider the basis for continued contact.
The defense's final major witness was Puit himself. Donner had advised against taking the stand unless he could explain the contradictions without introducing new ones, but Puit insisted that the jury needed to hear how frightened he had felt. He entered the witness chair looking thinner than he had in department photographs, his voice controlled at first and then increasingly emotional. He described a confusing encounter with a man whose calmness he interpreted as defiance.
"I was alone," he told the jury. "I didn't know who he was. He kept refusing simple instructions, and I felt I was losing control of the situation." His eyes filled when he described the moment he opened the baton. He said he had been afraid for his life. Some jurors watched him sympathetically, recognizing fear as something that could be real even when a decision was wrong.
Then Puit added a detail he had not included in any earlier report. "Right before the camera picked up the clear audio," he said, "he leaned toward me and told me he was going to take my gun." Donner looked up sharply. The statement was unexpected even to him. Puit seemed to believe the claim would explain everything: the fear, the baton, and the mistake he had been accused of making.
In the gallery, Sandra stiffened. Raymond remained still, but he felt the accusation settle with the familiar weight of a false statement offered as though it could repair an otherwise failing story. Webb made a note and waited for the judge to instruct the witness to answer the question actually asked. The courtroom did not yet know that the new allegation would lead to the most damaging testimony of the trial.
When cross-examination began, Webb asked Puit to identify the precise moment the alleged threat occurred. Puit placed it during the first conversation by the Chevelle, before the officer claimed he moved close enough for the body camera to capture every word. Webb played the original recording and asked him to point out the gap where that conversation could have occurred. Puit could not identify one.
"You didn't mention the threat in your incident report," Webb said. "You didn't mention it to Internal Affairs. You didn't mention it during the administrative hearing. You have not identified a witness who heard it. Is that correct?" Puit glanced at Donner.
"I was in shock. I remembered it later." Webb nodded. "After months of preparation, you remembered a threat to take your firearm for the first time here in front of the jury?"