Straight Outta Hunters Point director Kevin Epps saw his life go sideways, from making movies with Spike Lee to being charged with a 2016 homicide. This odd tale continues as his murder trial began today.

San Francisco filmmaker Kevin Epps was the talk of the town back in 2003, when his critically acclaimed documentary film Straight Outta Hunters Point made a splash on the film festival circuit. Epps then soon co-created the 2004 Showtime movie Sucker Free City with Spike Lee, and just last year, became executive editor of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, for which he won the 2024 Society of Professional Journalists Northern California chapter Silver Heart Award. Heck, SFist co-founder Eve Batey even moderated a panel discussion with Epps way back in 2007 at the height of his Straight Outta Hunters Point fame.

Which made it all the more shocking when Epps was arrested for murder in October 2016. Yet the very next day, Epps was released from custody, with the DA’s office citing “insufficient evidence” and declining to charge him with anything. For his part, Epps acknowledged the killing, but said it was in self-defense, and his attorney said at the time that “The person who was killed was an unwanted intruder making serious threats of death."

Three years passed, and then seemingly straight outta the blue, SFPD arrested Epps again for the same murder in 2019. DA George Gascón’s office said at that time that it had “strong new evidence against Epps.”

And now, many more years later, Mission Local reports Epps’s murder trial started today. Epps is now 57, and the death in question happened more than nine years ago.

The victim in the shooting was Marcus Polk, and there is no dispute that Epps killed him, and that Polk had made his way into Epps's family’s house in Glen Park. Epps’s then-fiancée was Polk’s ex-wife’s sister. Polk was fresh out of jail and homeless (he served on charges of lewd acts with a child) and was known to have drug issues. Epps said Polk was threatening him and his family.

And so the trial started today. Mission Local has a late Monday afternoon update from the court house, where the judge heard opening statements. Epps’s attorney said that Polk was high on meth at the time of the shooting, and they tried to deny him entry, but he forced his way in. Prosecutors argue that Polk was in the act of leaving the house when he was shot, and that Epps unnecessarily shot him in the back.

There will be testimony from police officers who were at the scene as the trial continues this week.

Related: ‘Straight Outta Hunters Point’ Director Kevin Epps Re-Arrested In 2016 Murder Case [SFist]

Image: Kevin Epps via Facebook