8.Michael Nickerson — Direct
105 linesMICHAEL NICKERSON, duly sworn
COURT CLERK: State your name, spell your last name for the record, keep your voice up and speak into the mic.
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Sure. It's Michael Nickerson, N-I-C-K-E-R-S-O-N.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. WEINREB:
MR. WEINREB: Good afternoon.
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Good afternoon.
MR. WEINREB: Where do you work?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I work for the Cambridge Police Department.
MR. WEINREB: How long have you worked there?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I've worked there for the last seven years.
MR. WEINREB: What's your current job there?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I work in uniform patrol.
MR. WEINREB: Were you a police officer at a different agency before then?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I was.
MR. WEINREB: Where?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I worked in Redding, Massachusetts.
MR. WEINREB: Also as a patrolman?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: That's correct.
MR. WEINREB: For how long?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Just about ten years.
MR. WEINREB: What are your duties?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I work patrol function, where I service calls and do uniform patrols around the city of Cambridge.
MR. WEINREB: So regular police work?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: That's correct.
MR. WEINREB: Are you in a marked cruiser?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Some shifts, yes.
MR. WEINREB: What about April 18th, 2013. Were you working on that night?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes, I was.
MR. WEINREB: In what capacity?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I was assigned to a two-man cruiser, to Car 4, which stretches from Harvard Square, West Cambridge up to the Watertown line. But due to the shooting I was -- we were redeployed to east of Harvard Square.
MR. WEINREB: What time did you start work that night?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: 11 p.m.
MR. WEINREB: What shooting are you referring to?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: The MIT shooting.
MR. WEINREB: How did you find out about it?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I was on my way to work. I was in front of Bunker Hill Community College on the way -- driving in, and I received a text from a fellow officer stating that a cop was shot at MIT.
MR. WEINREB: So they reassigned you to that area?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes. Since they had a lot of people tied up at the shooting scene, they wanted to put extra officers down east to assist with the calls.
MR. WEINREB: Did you get any calls?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes, I did.
MR. WEINREB: What call?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Around 12:19 we were dispatched to 816 Memorial Drive for report of a carjacking.
MR. WEINREB: What's at 816 Memorial Drive?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: A Mobil gas station.
MR. WEINREB: Did you drive there?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I did.
MR. WEINREB: What happened when you got there?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Me and my partner entered the gas station, and we were met by the clerk who stated that some gentleman ran into the store and told him to call 9-1-1.
MR. WEINREB: Then what happened?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: We asked the clerk to bring the person out so we could speak with him.
MR. WEINREB: What did he seem -- how did he seem when you talked to him?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: When he came out you could tell he was very upset. He was trembling. He was very scared. You could tell that something -- you know, he was a victim of something. He was very -- you could tell he was scared.
MR. WEINREB: What did he tell you?
MS. CONRAD: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MR. WEINREB:
MR. WEINREB: When he came out, did you get information from him about a vehicle?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I did.
MR. WEINREB: What did he say had happened with respect to that car?
MS. CONRAD: Objection.
MR. WEINREB: Your Honor, it's not being offered for the truth of the matter.
MS. CONRAD: That's fine.
THE COURT: You may have it not for the truth.
BY MR. WEINREB:
MR. WEINREB: What did he say happened about a car?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: He said that someone approached him when he was pulled over to text over on Brighton Ave. in Brighton.
MR. WEINREB: We don't need the whole story. Just what did he say about the -- what information did he give you about the car?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: He said it was a black Mercedes-Benz SUV.
MR. WEINREB: And did he say that he had been carjacked?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: He did.
MR. WEINREB: In addition to telling you it was a black Mercedes SUV, did he give you any information specifically about the car?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yeah, he gave us his registration number on the license plate.
MR. WEINREB: What did you do?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: At that time I radioed to our control, Cambridge Control, and stated that this gentleman was carjacked, a description of the car, and I gave out the license plate number.
MR. WEINREB: Did he say anything about the car having a tracking system in it?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes. Later on he told me that he had Mbrace.
MR. WEINREB: What's that?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Mbrace is a tracking device from Mercedes-Benz that you're able to track your car.
MR. WEINREB: When you called in the information about the car, the license plate and the description, what was the purpose of that?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: To notify the units out in the city of -- to be on the lookout for that vehicle so we could, you know, apprehend the people.
MR. WEINREB: And about -- when you got the information about the Mbrace system, what, if anything, did you do with that information?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: At that time I Googled the number for Mbrace and I called Mbrace.
MR. WEINREB: What happened?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I talked to one of their people and informed them what was going on and I was wondering if they could track the car.
MR. WEINREB: What did they say?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: They told me that they were speaking to two different law enforcement agencies and they're going to deal with them.
MR. WEINREB: About this very same matter?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes.
MR. WEINREB: Was one of them Cambridge Police Department?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes.
MR. WEINREB: Do you know who was the dispatcher that night at the Cambridge Police Department?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: It was Dispatcher Sullivan.
MR. WEINREB: Was he one of the people on the phone with Mbrace?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes.
MR. WEINREB: So given that he was talking to Mbrace, what did you do?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: I hung up the phone with Mbrace.
MR. WEINREB: Okay. And did you later hear Officer Sullivan give out some information about the Mercedes, its location?
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Yes, I did.
MR. WEINREB: Thank you. I have no further questions, Officer.
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Thank you.
MS. CONRAD: No questions. Thank you, Officer.
THE COURT: All right, Officer. Thank you. You may step down.
MICHAEL NICKERSON: Thank you.
(The witness is excused.)
MR. CHAKRAVARTY: The government calls Joseph Sullivan.