Officer Cody Holte
GRAND FORKS, N.D. – The attorney for a man charged with killing his mother and a police officer during a shootout with law enforcement who were serving eviction papers said Tuesday that although his client pulled the trigger to cause both deaths, he should not be found guilty of murder.
Defense attorney Steven Mottinger told a jury during his closing arguments that Salamah Pendleton was experiencing “extreme emotional disturbance” because officers came to evict him and his mother from their Grand Forks apartment despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and later because he thought officers had killed his mother, for whom he was the sole caretaker.