Bay Citizen
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…
A divided City Council halted a grant-funded port security construction project Tuesday, opting to put plans for the site on hold while exploring the feasibility of a nearby location. The move delays a nearly $4 million project to build a security and operations center for first responders at 1411 Harbour Way South, the Richmond Port’s current main office. Councilman Tom Butt lobbied for more than a month, first to initiate a $40,000 engineering assessment of Riggers Loft, and now to…
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…
For Tyris Franklin, the rest of his life could depend on what was going through his 16-year-old mind when he shot Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell four times, killing the unarmed student-athlete. “I don’t remember what happened,” Franklin said Thursday, testifying on his own behalf. “Things just boiled up and boiled up to where I had no choice … I don’t know, I just snapped and things happened.” Franklin, now 17, is on trial, accused of first-degree murder in the killing of…
Chevron Corp. invested $1 million in seven nonprofits focused on improving science and math education and enhancing economic development in Richmond. On Wednesday, about more than 100 people came to the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts to hear leaders from the seven organizations report on what they accomplished with the money over the last year. Leaders from each group presented short videos highlighting what they did with the money and provided statistics demonstrating everything from improved high school…
After six years, Richmond’s long-awaited General Plan update was passed by the City Council early Wednesday after a lengthy City Council meeting. The vote was 5-2, with Councilmen Corky Booze and Nat Bates dissenting. The plan was passed as recommended by city staff, with two modifications and a series of recommendations proposed by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin. McLaughlin added two key changes to the massive plan, which has been likened by staff to a “land use Constitution” that will guide development…
For Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell, a toxic mixture of neighborhood feuds, searing juvenile emotions, a small-caliber handgun and bad luck led to the end of his promising young life on a January afternoon in 2011. Grisby-Bell, a 16-year-old El Cerrito High School student and football player, was walking from his grandmother’s Crescent Park apartment when a white sedan packed with five teenagers stopped in the street. According to both the prosecution and defense in a murder trial that started Monday in…
City Council officials will decide tonight whether to halt federal grant-funded project to convert a building into a port security center. Councilman Tom Butt has for weeks raised concerns about whether the money would be better spent doing the same thing in a nearby structure. Butt says the city’s port operations have devolved into a “boondoggle” and that the city should reconsider port officials’ original plan, for which they received nearly $4 million in federal funding. See the port’s balance…
Jeff Ritterman is out. Marilyn Langlois and Eduardo Martinez want in. The campaign kickoff event at the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) downtown offices Sunday drew more than 120 people and featured speeches from this fall’s candidates for city office about platforms and accomplishments. But the biggest news was Councilman Ritterman’s public proclamation that he will not run for re-election in November after one term on the council. “I came here in 1981. I was 32 years old, and they made…