North Richmond
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…
The gun found near Joe Blacknell III during his September 2009 capture was almost certainly the same Smith & Wesson 9 mm that fired more than two dozen rounds at crime scenes in Oakland and Richmond, a firearms and ammunitions identification expert testified Monday. “It’s our conclusion that it is a practical impossibility that any other firearms made the marks,” said John Murdock, a nationally recognized expert in toolmark identification. Blacknell, age 21, is an alleged Richmond gang member accused…
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….
Two witnesses took the stand Monday to talk about being the victims of violent crimes, but neither implicated the man prosecutors say was the perpetrator. “How did that feel, being shot,” Deputy District Attorney Derek Butts asked one witness, a 32-year-old man Richmond Police have said is a central Richmond gang member. “I didn’t feel it,” the man said, referring to the bullets that ripped through his right arm and into the right side of his chest, nearly killing him…
Wallace Jensen and his partner Kristian Palma were in the dark, guns drawn. The Richmond police officers had moments earlier sprinted down Cutting Boulevard, hopped a retaining wall and plunged into a narrow alcove in the 500 block of South 18th Street. The city had been rocked by brazen shootings throughout the day, and the officers had just chased a man they say had a gun into a dark, dead-end corridor. Palma was about 10 feet from the man, who…
By the time for the Richmond Police Department’s evening shift change, the city was on high alert. Bloodshed had started just before 9 a.m., when gunfire at the Pullman Apartment complex sent two alleged gang members to Kaiser Hospital. About two hours later, a 30-year-old man and his 10-year-old niece sitting in a green Buick at Eighth and Adeline streets in Oakland came under fire. The man, who had no gang affiliations, was shot five times while shielding his niece…
Opening statements were delivered Tuesday in the trial of a Richmond man accused of commiting a 2009 crime spree that left four people wounded and a 21-year-old rap artist dead in incidents six months apart. Jose Blacknell III, age 21, whom prosecutors say is a member of the Easter Hill Boys gang and goes by the nickname “Fatter,” is charged with 22 felony counts in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez, including first-degree murder for the March, 2009 killing…