Safety
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.
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.
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…
Although Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus is expected to be in court through March defending himself in a racial discrimination lawsuit, RPD leaders say it’s business as usual for the department.
On the sixth day of testimony Thursday, Sergeant James Jenkins, a plaintiff in the discrimination lawsuit against the city of Richmond, police Chief Chris Magnus and former Deputy Chief Lori Ritter, testified that there was a buddy system in place when it came to picking candidates for the Richmond Police Department’s Investigative Services Division. In 2007, eight high-ranking African American police officers sued the city of Richmond, accusing Magnus and Ritter of racial discrimination through blocking the advancement of black…
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….