OAKLAND — After an intense courtroom listening to that spanned almost a month, an Alameda Superior Court docket choose dismissed homicide prices in opposition to one in every of three Bay Space males accused of inflicting a rolling gun battle on Interstate 880 that led to 1-year-old Jasper Wu being shot and killed by a stray bullet.
Choose Scott Patton dominated Wednesday that the proof in opposition to Richmond resident Johnny Jackson was not sufficient to satisfy even the burden of proof offered in preliminary hearings, the place prosecutors should merely set up possible trigger to ensure that the case to proceed. It’s a low bar that requires solely a “sturdy inference” of guilt, far lower than the affordable doubt commonplace jurors are given at prison trials.
Whereas dismissing all however a single felony gun possession depend in opposition to Jackson, the choose upheld homicide and gang prices in opposition to Trevor Inexperienced, 22, of Richmond; and Ivory Bivins, 24, of Vallejo, ruling that there was sufficient proof tying each males to the Nov. 6, 2021 freeway capturing. Jasper, simply weeks away from his second birthday, was driving southbound in his household’s automobile, and occurred to cross paths with two northbound automobiles engaged in a gunfight on the actual second somebody fired a shot, police say.
Jackson’s lawyer, reached for remark Thursday, mentioned Patton made the “appropriate choice” and that her consumer “did nothing to trigger the tragic dying of this baby.”
“He was a sufferer of an unprovoked ambush on the freeway,” protection lawyer Annie Beles mentioned.
Bivins’ lawyer, Ernie Castillo, mentioned he wasn’t stunned Jackson was largely discharged from the case. He mentioned that the protection will current witnesses to dispute whether or not Bivins’ automobile was concerned within the capturing, as prosecutors contend.
“The battle for Ivory actually has simply begun,” Castillo mentioned.
The prosecution idea quantities to this: Jackson and one other Bay Space man, Keison “Keke” Lee, have been members of 1 San Francisco gang referred to as Eddy Rock, whereas Inexperienced and Bivins are a part of a rival gang often known as Chopper Metropolis. Police have proof that Lee and Jackson observed a suspicious Infiniti following their Nissan by means of the streets of Oakland onto the freeway, and {that a} gunfight between the 2 automobiles began on Interstate 880, on the very second Jasper occurred to be driving in his household’s automobile.
Authorities contend that the Infiniti contained Inexperienced and Bivins, who face unrelated tried homicide prices in a capturing at Sunvalley Mall in Harmony. A warrant served on Inexperienced’s residence turned up ammunition just like that used within the capturing.
Lee, who was wounded within the capturing, by no means confronted prices; by the point police recognized him as a potential suspect, he’d been killed in a drive-by capturing on the 800 block of 81st Avenue in Oakland.
