Safety
North Richmond is a unique Bay Area community poised for growth and investment in the coming years. But it’s also saddled with a history of decades of poverty and violence, and a jaded outlook toward political leaders and outside forces. How well the tiny community of about 4,000 residents can reconcile those clashing realities could determine the future, according to a report produced by UC Berkeley graduate students. “This is part of a process of building institutional linkages between this…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The day after Tuesday’s shooting in unincorporated North Richmond left a 22-year-old man dying on the sidewalk, a city anti-violence agency filed a complain tagainst a Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy, accusing him of assaulting one of its staff members minutes after the fatal shooting of Lonnie Peterson III. Office of Neighborhood Safety staff say a deputy shoved ONS Agent Kevin Muccular and kicked and dented a Richmond city vehicle. Muccular rushed to the scene after receiving a tip that a…
A youth forum in North Richmond has been postponed in light of a deadly shooting Tuesday in front of a corner store a few blocks away. The forum, titled “New Voices,” was scheduled for Thursday at 4 p.m. It was to be hosted by UC Berkeley professor Malo Andre Hutson and his class of city planning graduate students, with sponsorship from The California Endowment and various neighborhood groups. “We have talked to many people working in Richmond and North Richmond…
North Richmond is no stranger to challenges – or proposed solutions. But a class of UC Berkeley grad students, backed by The California Endowment and a network of local allies, hope their efforts can make a difference. “Our hope is that we can help bring neighbors together in a way that creates new energies focused on key neighborhood issues and shared concerns,” said Heather Imboden, a first year master’s candidate in city planning. Imboden is one of a half dozen…