AP
Reporter Lexi Pandell takes you along some of Richmond’s waterfront as part of our continuing series of Richmond street photography.
It was a long meeting of the Richmond City Council Tuesday night, and it lasted into early Wednesday morning, filled with passionate debate regarding where the SS Red Oak Victory Ship should be berthed—and at what cost.
Joe “Fatter” Blacknell III was sentenced to life in prison plus more than 200 years without possibility of parole for the March 2009 murder of an up-and-coming East Bay rap artist and a September 2009 shooting and carjacking spree in Richmond and Oakland. Blacknell, now 21, was arrested after a brief foot pursuit with Richmond Police at the tail-end of the September 2009 crime spree. He was 18 at the time, and police and District Attorney Office officials say he…
Richmond police have had a busy 18 hours. Since 10 p.m. Tuesday, police and other emergency personnel have dealt with a seven-hour standoff with an attempted murder suspect, an early morning fire at an illegal marijuana cultivation warehouse and a deadly shooting at 10 a.m. Wednesday. The pot fire is the lowest priority investigation, according to police. “Detectives are trying to find out the information of who owns the building,” where the pot was being grown, said Richmond Police Lt….
How do you say hello to a convicted murderer? The thought darted through my head as I strode through the Martinez Courthouse jail facility’s winding corridors of concrete and steel. In moments I would be face-to-face—albeit divided by two-inch thick Plexiglas—with Joe Blacknell III, the young man described by police and District Attorney’s Office officials as one of the most violent offenders in Richmond’s history. I opened the steel door and there he was. His fist was pressed against the…
Thousands packed the 23rd Street commercial district on Sunday to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Richmond teamed up with the city of San Pablo for two days of festivities.
The golden shovels were out, but this wasn’t a “groundbreaking” ceremony. It was a ground “filling” one. City leaders and state and county officials were joined by more than 100 people Friday to mark the start of the final phase of a project to repair a massive sinkhole that swallowed cars and blocked access to a residential community more than two years ago near Via Verdi Road off I-80. The Via Verdi repair project began April 15, 2010, when heavy…
Tyris Franklin was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances Thursday in the killing of Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell in January 2011. Franklin, 17, showed no emotion as the clerk read the verdict in a Martinez courtroom. Wearing glasses and a gray button-up shirt, Franklin looked at a cluster of family and friends as they left the courtroom. Franklin, who was charged as an adult, faces 50 years to life in prison for murder with a firearm. The jury deliberated…
The jury has the case. What then-16-year-old Tyris Franklin was thinking when he shot another teen four times is what they have to decide. Closing arguments concluded the trial proceedings Tuesday in the case against Franklin, now 17, accused of first-degree murder in the Jan. 10, 2011 killing of El Cerrito High School student athlete Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell, 16. Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove painted a picture of Richmond neighborhoods plagued by territorial rivalries and senseless violence, a milieu in…