Posted on 12/06/2006 9:44:09 AM PST by Yaelle
LONG BEACH - A group of alleged gang members on Tuesday rammed the car of a black witness who has testified for five days in the Halloween beating of three young white women by a group of black youths.
The witness - who the Press-Telegram decided not to identify because of previous charges of witness intimidation - was leaving the Long Beach Superior Courthouse on her final day of testimony with a police escort when she heard news of the attack from her boyfriend, said Cmdr. Jeff Johnson of the Long Beach Police Department.
Her boyfriend called her on her cell phone and told her that neighbors ran and got him after they saw a group drive by her car, which was parked in front of her home, and then back into it with such force that the vehicle is thought to be totaled, Johnson said.
Witnesses described the men as wearing clothing typically seen on members of the Baby Insane Crips, Johnson said.
"It appears as though they're sending her another message," the commander said.
It was following the witness' first day in court, Nov. 29, that she awoke to find six men who appeared to be gang members sitting on her car waiting for her. She was able to call police, who have since escorted her every Advertisement day that she has testified.
Johnson said that Tuesday's attack occurred just a day after one of the defense attorneys pressed the witness into describing her car, including the year it was made.
She balked at the questions on Monday, but was told by Superior Court Judge Gibson Lee that she must provide the information on cross examination.
Officers from the LBPD's Gang and Youth Services details are investigating, Johnson said.
During her five days of testimony, which included queries from nine of 10 defense attorneys and the prosecutor, the 18-year-old witness was questioned in minute detail by both sides in the case, then questioned in two more redirect sessions and re-cross examinations.
At the end of the day Tuesday, the judge thanked the witness for participating in the trial, or adjudication as it is called in juvenile court.
"You're welcome," she said in an exasperated tone, prompting several laughs in the nearly full courtroom.
Defense attorneys for some of the 10 minors in court focused once again on the witness' inability to recognize any of the minors in the courtroom.
She had testified that she was able to able identify some of the minors the night of the attack for police, and that two in particular stood out in her memory. She later matched the minors to their photos in court, but made a mistake with one identification.
Asked how the mistake occurred and the witness said that she could not see all of the minors in the crowded courtroom because her view was partially blocked by the judge's bench.
The defense attorneys also had her explain several times that she relied on the youths' clothing and hairstyles when she identified some of them the night of the attack in a field lineup, not their facial features.
Defense attorney Frank Williams Jr. asked the witness if the police detaining the 10 minors convinced the witness they were responsible for the beating.
"If they had had 12 in the cars, you would believe those 12 were involved?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
Several defense attorneys, including Kathleen Moreno, John Schmocker and Clive Martin, asked the witness if what she had told police about their clients - that she did not recognize the minors in the lineup - was true. She agreed.
"Is it your testimony ... that you do not recognize her as one of the assaulting people?" Moreno asked.
"Yes," the witness said.
Deputy District Attorney Andrea Bouas asked the young woman if any of the questions that had come up in court over the last several days changed her mind about what she told police the night of the incident.
"Were you certain at that time ... about what each person may have done?" Bouas asked.
"Yes," the witness replied.
Accused in the case are 10 Long Beach youths - nine girls and one boy age 12 to 17.
All 10 have been charged with three felony counts of assault by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. A hate-crime enhancement was added to eight of the 10 minors' charges based on witness statements that several of the attackers yelled racial slurs while beating the three victims.
Two other suspects
In addition to the 10 minors, two Long Beach boys - both 15 - were arrested within a few days of the beating and have also been charged with felony assault and the hate-crime enhancement.
One 15-year-old's adjudication is scheduled to begin Thursday, but it was not clear if the case would have to be delayed and possibly moved from Long Beach.
"I don't know, I've been busy with this case ... it may have to be tried by someone else," said Bouas, who handles juvenile prosecutions for the DA's Long Beach branch. "We'll see on Thursday."
The session began Tuesday afternoon with testimony from a Long Beach Police Department sergeant.
Police testimony
Sgt. Ali Assef, a 19-year veteran of the force, testified that he was the first on the scene after dispatchers put out a call about a fight involving a large crowd in the area of Linden Avenue and Bixby Road.
A massive crowd of trick-or-treaters had descended on the Bixby Knolls neighborhood to see lavish displays, including a haunted house visited by the victims and to collect extravagant amounts of candy being handed out there.
When he arrived, the sergeant said, he saw many people of different races scattered up and down the street.
He got a basic description of the suspects and their vehicles from several witnesses, Assef said, and then broadcast the information over the police radio.
He was also directed to one of the victims - a 21-year-old who suffered a dozen fractures on one side of her face and who may have permanent damage to her sight in one eye from the beating.
Field lineup
The sergeant testified that he eventually drove that victim to a grocery store parking lot on Long Beach Boulevard north of San Antonio Drive for the field lineup, about half a mile from the attacks.
Each witness was taken in separate police vehicles, he explained, and the drive lasted three minutes or less.
Assef left the 21-year-old victim sitting in the front seat of his black-and-white SUV for what he thought was 15 to 20 minutes as he and other officers put together a plan for the lineup.
The sergeant was asked about the lighting in the lineup and whether he spoke to her about the detained youths before she made the identifications.
The grocery store parking lot was lit by its own lights, as well as the police vehicle's spotlights and headlights, he said.
He did not talk to the victim about the minors other than to tell her that there were some possible suspects detained nearby and that he was going to take her there to see if she could identify any of them.
His communication with the officer calling the youths forward for the lineup was done through a signal - he turned on his red light bar - after the victim was done making her identifications and he had written down what she said.
"She said, `Yeah, she was standing next to the girl I just identified,"' Assef read from one of the forms.
"`She kicked me in the back of the legs and punched me in the back of my head,"' the sergeant read.
The victim, he said, signed each of the 10 forms after viewing each of the 10 minors. As he was reading from the forms, he said she identified four of the 10 minors.
Several attorneys zeroed in on the victim's ability to see that night, as well as her emotional state following the brutal beating, implying that her injuries may have interfered with her ability to identify witnesses.
"She had a black eye, a swollen nose and she had some blood on her face," Assef said.
Assef said the victim told him her jaw hurt, that she thought it might be broken, and mentioned her vision was blurred in one eye.
Testimony is expected to resume today at 1:30 p.m.
Tracy Manzer can be reached at tracy.manzer@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1261.
I don't even know how to tell when something has been moved to chat.
I can't believe this story belongs in "chat." I am shocked that this story went there. Don't people understand that if we live in a society where some people may commit violent crimes with impunity and no one will even report on it, it hurts us all, no one more so than the poor blacks having to live with these hoods? It can take generations to erase a culture of hate (please see "Palestinians"). When this same kind of hate brews in our own culture, is this not news? Is this not more important than what Britney Spears wears under her skirts?
It may be my fault. I added this article to Front Page News, because such blatent witness intimidation just a day after the defense lawyer forced her to describe her car is so brazen and shocking, and a complete thwarting of the rule of law.
However in the past one of the mods has had a beef with me, so perhaps this story wasn't given the evaluation it deserves.
Or maybe it was simply an honest mistake, the mods have to make tons of decisions all day long about articles, from legal/excerpt issues to proper classification, but I would hope that they review and reconsider on this article.
I'm certain the gangbangers don't give a damn about "outrage".
Given that 60% of communication is nonverbal, they might if we really meant it.
This is truly an outrage as you say, but it's not surprising. Black racism is totally out of control and the media is doing nothing but aiding and abetting it.
If only there were a way to make all gangstas disappear, Crips, Bloods, Nortenos, Surenos, MS-13...unfortunately this solution is quite illegal.
Instead we house many thousands of them at taxpayer expense, while they tattoo themselves and carry on lives of violence "inside" and kill people outside.
Thank you Tookie
"For it to become national news it would have to have been three innocent black girls beat nearly to death by a gang of white punks."
Or a couple of black prostitutes could just make something up.
"We know of one recent mob attack (also by black perps, as it turns out) in Las Vegas like this, last summer."
Here in Jackson, MS too.
a) nobody died
and
b) it happened close to the time the black guy was shot killed by NYPD on his wedding day.
Thank you for speaking out, media coverage this story is a national shame,Fox news and Rush included.
It's a very depressing story. Incidentally, it seems to have become the in thing to do for teenage and young adult thuggish black men and women to show up in faraway neighborhoods for "trick or treat." I finally decided to turn off my porch light and go out for the night when all the "trick or treaters" at my door were over 6' tall. Incidentally, I would have done the same if they were white; having hoodie young people of any color showing up on the doorstep at night somehow takes the fun out of Halloween.
Jeez, didn't you read the article? You need to read this withy a more pc point of view. These underprivileged black girls were trying collect the sumptious treats that were being given out and enjoy the decorations and hauted house in this obviously wealthy neighborhood. They just wanted what the white girls had.
The LA Times never saw a dictator, a traitor, or a vicious criminal that it didn't want to hug and protect.
Oh great, was that Tookie's gang? Was it the Crips he so kindly started? The gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah, so did the black boys that started the whole thing by grabbing their crotches and yelling "You down with it?" or whatever they yelled.
Oh, come on, you know that these kids are from deprived backgrounds and never really had a chance, so we should understand the aggressive behavior toward the more fortunate white women and toward the black witness, who was so disloyal to her black brothers and sisters.
John Ziegler is all over this right now on www.kfi640.com.
The defense attorney asked the young woman yesterday the description of her car. The judge made her answer. So, gang members destroyed it. The LOS ANGELES TIMES refused to report that part of the story. They had not even done a story on the black on white hate crime until about last week. It happened on Halloween.
You CAN'T be serious!!!!
It wasn't a bad area. The girls lived a few blocks away. The attackers were from a completely different neighborhood.
If you'd read about this case before opening your mouth and proving you're a dumbass, maybe you wouldn't come off like a dumbass. It was a hate crime carried out by some 30 black kids against three white girls who were minding their own business and trying to avoid these lower than dog$hit hyenas. The girls were brutally set upon and called all manner of racial epithets about being white. These pukes were out just looking for somebody to victimize so they went on over to a wealthy white neighborhood known for having good Halloween spirit to pick their victims. How you can search for excuses or some way to blame the victims by suggesting they shouldn't have been there is disgusting and beyond comprehension.
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