No, Sir, I Do Not Bite My Thumb At You Sir; But I Bite My Thumb, Sir.

Alfred L. Gordon was a 52-year-old Orlando Police Department veteran with almost 30 years of experience. That was until the night of Thursday October 4, 2007 when he was shot and killed during a botched ATM robbery.

Gordon was withdrawing money from an ATM on the corner of Silver Star and North Hiawassee roads in Pine Hills (colloquially known as Crime Hills) , a suburb of west Orlando. When he was approached and later killed by South Florida teens: Davin Smith, 19 (at the time) and Hugo Terry, 18 (at the time).

What made the trial of Davin Smith, which is the trial I attended, even more interesting was that formal boy band mogul Lou Pearlman testified against Smith. Pearlman, who is currently serving a 25 year sentence for bank and wire fraud, testified that while in prison Smith had bragged that he had killed a police officer.

While in court there was a very interesting witness who unfortunately I was not able to get the name of, because I arrived after he had been called to the stand. He was an interesting witness, because he had been called to basically echo the sentiments of Lou Pearlman, saying he had heard Smith brag about killing a police officer. However, unlike Pearlman this witness, apparently had a history of “snitching,” on other inmates. Accordingly the defense tried to show that he just wanted attention and a day out of prison. The inmate did not help himself by talking back to the defense and coming off as more of a trouble making blow hard than a viable witness.


Another interesting fact about the trial was that you were able to see some of Gordon's last moments as there was a security camera mounted above the ATM. This piece of evidence was of vital importance to the prosecution, but there was a certain degree of difficulty in getting the surveillance video to work. While it was never quite clear what exactly the hold up was the delay lasted some 40 minutes.

Towards the end of the trial the jury did not take long to find Smith guilty and recommend a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Another interesting fact I learned and perhaps less to do with the trial itself was that there was only one camera allowed in the courtroom at a time. During this particular case Channel 9 WFLA the Orlando ABC affiliate was on duty. After the case adjourns for the day the other local news stations can request the tape from the trial so they can run it on their news.