North Richmond
On the first day of witness testimony for the defense, public defender Diana Garrido spent several hours focused on what may be the prosecution’s biggest weaknesses in its case against Joe Blacknell III: shaky witnesses and inconclusive scientific evidence. The prosecution’s star witness, a woman shot and wounded while driving with murder victim Marcus Russell, told a detective on the day of the shooting – and Russell’s friend days later – that she ducked when gunfire erupted and could not…
Analysis of shell casings suggests a link between four killings in Oakland and Richmond and many of the 22 felonies for which Joe Blacknell III is on trial, Richmond Police Det. Christopher Llamas testified Thursday. The revelation came after weeks of testimony in the closely-watched case. Blacknell, now 21, is charged with shooting and killing Marcus Russell on March 10, 2009 and wounding four people on September 13 that same year. Blacknell also faces more than a dozen other charges,…
Throughout most of 2009, neighborhood cliques of mostly teens and young adults were locked in a back-and-forth feud, intensified by ambitions for respect and reprisal. Mixed with the hot tempers and youthful indiscretions, social networking sites had become bulletin boards for taunts, and a burgeoning hop-hop video scene on YouTube bristled with boasts and threats. Add to that, the kids had military-grade weapons. “Assault weapons, pistols, [high-capacity] magazines, laser sightings,” said Detective Christopher Llamas. “In 2009, we had 350-plus shootings”…
The burly detective turned up the intensity, sometimes yelling in a bass-heavy bellow, cursing frequently. His partner chipped in some grim facts—she reminded the 18-year-old suspect about the prospects of a lifetime behind bars. And it wasn’t just a tough-talk routine. The detectives feigned that they had evidence—DNA, surveillance and witnesses—solid as the iron bars at San Quentin. But none of it had an effect. Joe Blacknell III never wavered in insisting he was innocent. “I’m not worried about it…
The prosecutor let the image linger overhead. The photo’s stark shades revealed a slim teen boy, hat backwards, teeth bared in a sneer. The jury saw in his thin arms an AK-47 assault rifle, right hand on the trigger, left hand braced under the barrel, a long “banana clip” magazine jutting out the bottom. His T-shirt bore a memorial picture of Sean “Shawny Bo” Melson, an alleged gang member who was shot and killed at age 16 in North Richmond…
More than one year after the March 2009 murder of Marcus Russell, the woman who was with him when he was killed identified a suspect. She said the man was in the van from which a fusillade of gunfire was unleashed, killing Russell and wounding her in the leg. Problem is, the man, a well-known alleged south Richmond gang member who goes by the nickname ‘Scooter Doo,’ couldn’t have been in the car that day. He was in jail. “I…
The trauma of at least eight gunshot wounds assured the death of 21-year-old Marcus Russell, a coroner’s examiner testified Tuesday. “It was the totality of all the gunshot wounds put together,” said Dr. Thomas Rogers, forensic pathologist for the Alameda County Coroner’s Office. “A large amount of internal bleeding caused shock” from which Russell never emerged. Detailed testimony and graphic autopsy photos dominated proceedings Tuesday in the trial against Joe Blacknell III, a 21-year-old Richmond resident accused of killing Russell,…
On the night before his death, Marcus Russell’s nerves were uneasy, and a red minivan was lurking curbside a few blocks from his grandmother’s house, his mother testified Monday. But before Faith Russell could see who was driving the red minivan, which she said she saw several times in her neighborhood in the months leading up to her son’s March 2009 death, it sped away. Once, as she drove toward it, the van accelerated up the street, headlights off. A…
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…