United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-1646 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ZEBULON XAVIER MARZETTE, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. No. 3:21-cr-00005-DRL-MGG-1 — Damon R. Leichty, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 23, 2024 — DECIDED JULY 1, 2024 ____________________

Before SCUDDER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Zebulon Marzette appeals his con- viction for possessing a firearm as a felon, challenging the dis- trict court’s admission of two pieces of evidence at trial. Mar- zette preserved one of his challenges—a chain-of-custody challenge to DNA evidence—but not the other—a hearsay challenge to police testimony about the content of a 911 call. In the end, the government’s chain-of-custody evidence 2 No. 23-1646 sufficed and, under the demanding standards of plain error review, Marzette fails to persuade us that any error allowing the 911 caller’s statements to come in through police testi- mony prejudiced him at trial. So we affirm. I A The trial record supplies the operative facts. At about 5:30 p.m. on September 20, 2019, a 911 dispatcher received a call reporting an incident at the LaSalle Park Homes apartment complex on Falcon Street in South Bend, Indiana. The caller stated that there were people pounding on her door and waving guns. The dispatcher relayed the infor- mation to four officers—Sergeant Miranda Baker, Officer Bryan Watkins, Officer Chris Butler, and Officer Joshua Law- son. Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins responded directly to the apartment complex to investigate the disturbance, while Officers Butler and Lawson checked out the perimeter. The responding officers encountered a dynamic environ- ment, complicated by the simultaneous occurrence of several events. Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins arrived at the complex looking for armed suspects. The officers described the scene as “chaotic,” with several people outside yelling at them that “the people with guns” ran down an alleyway lead- ing towards the backside of the building. After first ensuring no one in front of the building was armed, Sergeant Baker then headed for the alleyway in search of the people who caused the reported disturbance. As Sergeant Baker swept the complex’s surroundings, two other events unfolded in parallel. Officers Butler and Law- son—who drove directly to the perimeter of the complex— No. 23-1646 3 pulled over (for reasons unclear from the trial record) a Blue Chevy Malibu that they saw driving away from the backside of the building. Around the same time, Zebulon Marzette left the apartment complex on foot and walked to the location of the car stop. What happened next is unclear. At some point, the officers handcuffed Marzette and placed him in the back of the squad car. We cannot tell what prompted that action. We are not required to answer this question, however, be- cause Marzette does not challenge any aspect of his detention on appeal. Later—whether before or after detaining Marzette we can- not say—Officers Butler and Lawson radioed for assistance. This led Sergeant Baker and Officer Watkins to head in the direction of the car stop. By the time they arrived, the Malibu had been stopped, its passenger-side door was open, and one passenger stood outside of the car while the driver remained inside. According to Officer Watkins, a third person—Mar- zette—was handcuffed in the back of