RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — A Rapid City man is free after prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him and a jury acquitted him of gun crimes in connection with a fatal shooting in Pine Ridge last year.
Phillip Pond was accused of shooting Justin Little Hawk in November 2020.
Little Hawk died that December in a hospital. Pond turned himself in in February and was indicted on second-degree murder.
Prosecutors filed a new indictment in May charging Pond with illegally possessing a gun but dropped the homicide count.
Pond represented himself at trial.
Proceedings lasted two days before the jury acquitted him May 27. Pond had argued that a number of people who told police he killed Little Hawk were lying.
