AP
In the days before he was shot and killed while driving his grandmother’s Nissan Maxima on I-580, Marcus Russell was nervous about simmering neighborhood tensions and a red minivan that seemed to be following him around Richmond, Russell’s friends and family testified in Contra Costa County Court Thursday. “You know your children,” Faith Russell, Marcus’ mother, said from the witness stand. “And it looked like something was bothering him.” The day of testimony wrapped up the third week of proceedings…
Cliques, rumors, exclusion: those words came up again and again on Wednesday during testimony in the racial discrimination suit against the city and police Chief Chris Magnus.
The North Richmond neighborhood hasn’t flooded since the Army Corps of Engineers erected levees decades ago around the two creeks. But although their record so far is good, the levees now don’t meet Federal Emergency Management Agency standards.
When the red van pulled alongside their driver’s side door, the long barrel of an assault rifle was jutting out the window – but it was quiet. “They waited for a second, for Marcus to look up,” said a young woman seated at the witness stand, wearing a checkered jacket and a pained scowl. “Did Marcus say anything?” asked Deputy District Attorney Derek Butts. “He said ‘oh (expletive),’” she replied. “That’s when the shooting started.” In the most explosive day…
Tuesday’s testimony – a marathon volley between Hartinger and Pickett – traced the rapid devolution of relations in the department after Magnus’ January 2006 hiring, which brought him to Richmond from Fargo, N.D.
In 2007, eight high-ranking African American police officers sued the city of Richmond, accusing police Chief Chris Magnus and former Deputy Chief Lori Ritter of racial discrimination. The civil trial is now in its third week in Contra Costa Superior Court in Martinez. The plaintiffs—one of whom has since retired from the department and dropped his name from the suit—sued in March 2007, just over a year after Magnus was hired from Fargo, North Dakota. The suit alleges that Magnus…
The black-hooded sweatshirt Joe Blacknell III wore on the day he allegedly shot four people and missed two others had minute traces of gunshot residue on it, but not enough to definitively conclude that he fired a gun, a Los Angeles County criminalist testified Wednesday at Contra Costa Superior Court in Martinez. Blacknell is an alleged Richmond gang member accused of committing 22 felonies in 2009, including the murder of rap artist Marcus Russell. Margaret Kaleuaty, an expert in gunshot…
One witness didn’t show, two were several hours late, and the most pivotal one had a foggy memory. On the fifth day of testimony in one of the most anticipated criminal cases coming out of Richmond in recent years, the prosecution slogged through a series of unwanted developments and uncooperative witnesses. “So you’re saying all of the testimony here is the truth?” Deputy District Attorney Derek Butts asked his witness, who appeared to contradict his own testimony on several occasions….
A curbside memorial marks the spot where Edwin Martinez was fatally shot earlier this week, but who is responsible and why it happened remain unknown. “He appears absolutely innocent,” said Capt. Mark Gagan. “Totally uninvolved in what was going on.” At around 6:45 p.m. Monday night, the 22-year-old Richmond man was shot and killed while sitting in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla driven by his sister, police said. The car was parked in front of his apartment in…