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Motor bikes, a Nissan and a deadly chase of an Omaha man with 'nowhere to hide'

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It was an extraordinary scene on a Sunday afternoon in north-central Omaha.

Shortly after 2 p.m. July 26, 2020, John Parks Jr. and a friend were riding mini motorized dirt bikes south on 53rd Street near Boyd Street.

As the 20-year-olds zoomed down the street, a black Nissan Maxima turned a corner and bore down on them. The Maxima, with two people inside, eventually collided with Parks’ bike.

Parks zipped away, but the Nissan kept pace until, finally, Parks ditched the bike and tried to run. Seven shots rang out from the Nissan. One hit Parks in the neck. Running for his life, Parks scaled a fence before collapsing and dying in a backyard.

Perry

Two years later, the alleged driver of the Nissan is on trial for first-degree murder. Daquandre Perry, then 20, now 22, is charged under an accomplice theory — that he may or may not have been the shooter but is equally culpable because he was driving the car that was hunting Parks. The passenger in the Maxima has not been charged.

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“You’re not here to decide what (the passenger) did,” prosecutor Amy Jacobsen told jurors Tuesday. “You’re here to decide what Daquandre Perry did. (Parks) had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”

Perry’s defense attorneys, Renee Mathias and Mallory Hughes, told jurors that prosecutors will not be able to prove that Perry was driving the car. In opening statements Tuesday morning, Mathias said the only thing prosecutors could prove was that Perry had driven a black Nissan Maxima eight days before.

Mathias said jurors will discover at least seven shortcomings in the case that will lead them to find reasonable doubt and, in turn, find Perry not guilty. Among them, Mathias said, prosecutors have no murder weapon and no witnesses who can identify either the driver or the passenger.

“You’re here today because he was in a black sedan eight days prior to the shooting,” Mathias told jurors.

Jacobsen said there’s more to it than that.

Jacobsen said the first break in the case occurred when an Omaha police officer notified detectives that he had pulled over a black Nissan that Perry was driving a week before Parks’ killing. Homicide detectives then tracked down the suspect car at the home of a friend of Perry’s. Sure enough, Jacobsen said, the Nissan had front-end damage consistent with a crash.

Jacobsen said Omaha police then collected several home surveillance videos from the day in question — one of which shows the Nissan hitting Parks while he was on the dirt bike. A detective inspected the damage and said the front quarter-panel damage was consistent with a collision.

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Various videos will show the high-speed chase. A video also will show Perry and a passenger getting out of a black Nissan at the Lindenwood Court apartments, 48th and Boyd Streets, at 2:30 p.m., Jacobsen said.

They were “having a great time, dancing around, 20 minutes after this murder,” Jacobsen said.

Mathias told jurors that four different people were known to drive the Nissan.

“I don’t know a whole lot about cars, but I do know that four people cannot drive a car at one time,” she said.

Mathias also noted that the shooting occurred at 2:10 p.m. A Nissan pulled into the Lindenwood apartments at 2:30 p.m.

“The state wants you to believe it takes 20 minutes to (travel) three minutes,” Mathias said. “That’s reasonable doubt.”

Or, Jacobsen suggested, Perry and his passenger drove around for a while because they knew they were in a “hot car” — i.e. a suspect vehicle — before pulling into the nearby apartments.

Perry’s trial is expected to take a week. Law enforcement authorities think the shooting was gang-related. Jurors, however, will not hear any testimony about gangs, in keeping with prior court rulings that such testimony can poison jurors’ views of a case.

Nor will jurors hear this: The killing of Parks prompted his father, John Parks Sr., to visit Omaha from his home state of Texas. While here, prosecutors say, he thought that a couple had footage of his son’s death on their phone. Prosecutors allege the elder Parks killed Michael Harbour, 35, and Nicole Hatten, 36, in a mistaken rage over that footage — which actually was a viral video of a killing in Mexico. The elder Parks is awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree murder.

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Daquandre Perry

Perry