Filed 1/28/21 P. v. Williams CA2/1

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

VERNON WILLIAMS,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B301325

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. TA144839)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of 

Los Angeles County, H. Clay Jacke, II, Judge. Affirmed. 

Maggie Shrout, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, 

for Defendant and Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief 

Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant 

Attorney General, Zee Rodriguez and Nicholas J. Webster, 

Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________________
2

Defendant Vernon Williams was convicted of three counts 

of possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of Penal Code1

section 29800, subdivision (a)(1). The trial court imposed an 

aggregate sentence of 11 years in state prison, which includes a 

4-year enhancement that was imposed pursuant to 

section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1) (gang-enhancement provision)

for one of Williams’s convictions; and two 16-month 

enhancements imposed pursuant to the gang-enhancement 

provision for his other two convictions.

On appeal, Williams challenges the trial court’s imposition 

of the gang enhancements. In particular, Williams argues 

that the People failed to introduce sufficient evidence that: 

(1) Williams committed these offenses (a) for the benefit of, at the 

direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang (i.e., the 

Grape Street Crips), and (b) with the specific intent to promote, 

further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members; and 

(2) the Grape Street Crips has as one of its primary activities one

or more of the criminal acts identified in section 186.22, 

subdivisions (e)(1) to (25) and (e)(31) to (33), such that it

constitutes a “criminal street gang” for the purposes of the 

enhancement provision.

We reject Williams’s evidentiary challenges to the gang 

enhancements. First, we conclude the People offered evidence 

showing that in connection with at least two of his offenses,

Williams possessed firearms in association with fellow gang 

members at a marijuana dispensary controlled by the Grape 

Street Crips, and that Williams committed all three offenses for 

the benefit of the gang to ensure that he and/or his gang affiliates 

1 Undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code.
3

could batter, assault, or kill any rival gang members or other 

adversaries who attempted to rob the establishment. Second, the 

testimony of the People’s gang expert regarding the Grape Street 

Crips’ primary activities was sufficient to establish that element 

of the statutory definition of a criminal street gang. Finding no 

error, we affirm the judgment.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On March 1, 2018, the People filed an amended information 

charging Williams with one count of criminal threats, in violation 

of section 422, subdivision (a) (count 1); one count of battery with 

injury on a peace officer, in violation of section 243, 

subdivision (c)(2) (count 3); two counts of resisting an executive 

officer, in violation of section 69 (counts 4 and 5); one count of 

violating a criminal street gang injunction, in violation of 

section 166, subdivision (a)(9) (count 6); three counts of 

possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of section 29800, 

subdivision (a)(1) (counts 7, 8, and 10); and one count of 

attempting to dissuade a witness, in violation of section 136.1, 

subdivision (a)(2) (count 11).2 The amended information included 

an allegation under the gang-enhancement provision for counts 7, 

8, and 10. Williams pleaded not guilty on all counts and denied 

all allegations. 

In July 2018, a jury acquitted Williams of counts 1 and 6

but deadlocked on the remaining counts. The trial court later 

dismissed counts 3, 4, and 5 pursuant to section 1385. 

2 The amended information does not contain a count 2 or a 

count 9. Additionally, the trial court later amended count 3 such 

that it alleged a violation of section 243, subdivision (b) instead of 

section 243, subdivision (c)(2). 
4

At the conclusion of Williams’s second trial in 

January 2019, the jury acquitted Williams of count 11, but found 

him guilty on counts 7, 8, and 10, and found true the gangenhancement allegation for each of these three offenses. 

On July 16, 2019, the trial court sentenced Williams to 

prison for an aggregate term of 11 years. Specifically, the trial 

court imposed a term of 3 years on count 7 along with a 4-year 

consecutive term under the gang-enhancement provision, a 

consecutive prison term of 2 years that is comprised of 8 months 

for count 8 along with a 16-month term pursuant to the gangenhancement provision, and another consecutive term of 2 years 

that consists of 8 months for count 10 plus 16 months in 

accordance with the gang-enhancement provision. Williams 

timely appealed the judgment on September 12, 2019. 

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

We summarize only those facts that are relevant to this 

appeal.

1. Officer Paiz’s encounter with Williams on 

June 13, 2017

On June 13, 2017, Officer Jeremy Paiz of the Los Angeles 

Police Department (LAPD) and his partner were on patrol. While 

Officer Paiz was driving his police vehicle, he saw Williams walk 

out of a marijuana dispensary, look at the police vehicle, grab his 

right front pocket, and run back inside the dispensary. The two 

officers thereafter attempted to enter the dispensary, but the 

door was locked. Officer Paiz could see Williams and several 

other persons inside the business, and noticed that Williams had 

a bulge in his right front pocket that Officer Paiz believed was a 

firearm. 
5

After additional officers arrived at the scene, the police

surrounded the building and ordered Williams and the other 

occupants to come out of the dispensary. Approximately 

30 persons exited the dispensary, including Williams. The police 

did not find a weapon on any of these individuals. Officer Paiz 

later found a handgun in a dumpster in the parking lot behind 

the dispensary. As discussed in the Factual Background part 2.c,

post, Detective Daniel Pearce subsequently obtained surveillance 

footage from the dispensary showing that Williams possessed one 

or more firearms at the establishment on June 10, 11, and 13, 

2017.

2. Detective Pearce’s expert testimony

At trial, Detective Daniel Pearce testified as the People’s 

gang expert and as an investigating officer. Detective Pearce 

joined the LAPD’s Southeast Division in 2004, and he was 

assigned to the Southeast gang impact team as a gang detective 

from 2008 to 2011, and again from late 2015 or early 2016 until

late 2018. From 2005 until late 2018, Detective Pearce focused 

on investigating gang activity. 

During Detective Pearce’s investigations, he “talked to 

countless witnesses of crime, victims of crime, [and] gang 

members who commit crime.” Additionally, Detective Pearce has 

spoken to over 100 Grape Street Crips gang members during the 

course of his career. Several of those gang members were 

“cooperative” and “provided [Detective Pearce] with information 

kind of behind the scenes about ongoing Grape Street [Crips] 

activities.” 
6

a. The Grape Street Crips and Gangs Generally

The Grape Street Crips gang has an informal hierarchical 

structure. “Young homies” are the “very active” gang members 

who commit various violent crimes and property offenses and are 

usually between 12 and 21 years of age. “Big homies,” “the most 

influential person[s] . . . within the gang,” are individuals who 

are “25 to 35 years of age” and “have demonstrated a loyalty to 

the gang with committing multiple crimes” and refusing to 

“snitch on the gang” (i.e., cooperate with law enforcement). The 

O.G.s are “above” the big homies; O.G.s have “retired from the 

active gang lifestyle” and are 35 to 50 years old. 

At the time Williams’s second trial was held in 

January 2019, Detective Pearce had known Williams for 

approximately 13 years, and during that timeframe, Williams 

had become a “big homie” in the Grape Street Crips gang.

Williams has several tattoos associated with the Grape Street 

Crips gang, including a tattoo with the letters “L” and “C” and 

another tattoo depicting an Uzi with the words “Costa Nostra”

below it. Williams’s monikers are “Double Deuces,” “Dub,” and 

“Big Dub.” 

The Grape Street Crips gang claims as its territory the 

Watts Neighborhood of Los Angeles, a neighborhood that includes 

the Jordan Downs housing project; Detective Pearce was assigned 

to the area in and around Jordan Downs in 2005. Generally, a 

gang will claim a territory as its own in order to have a place at 

which to “hang out, sell drugs, commit crimes, [and] to meet, . . . 

congregate, [and] defend.” The Grape Street Crips gang uses 

guns to “defend the gang territory” and “intimidate people.” 

Detective Pearce testified that if a gang member is in his gang’s 

territory and possesses a weapon, “it’s important for a majority of 
7

the [gang], if not every member[,] to know if there is a gun and 

where it is” “[b]ecause at any given time[,] should another gang 

try to rob or shoot at the home gang, it is incumbent upon all the 

gang members to do their part to defend either their territory or 

the business . . . .” Detective Pearce testified that in “gang 

culture,” it is not “acceptable to call the police” “[i]f you th[ink]

that someone [is] there coming to hurt you”; a gang member is 

instead “expected to handle those kinds of threats” himself. 

When the prosecutor asked Detective Pearce to identify 

“the primary activities of the Grape Street Crips,” Detective 

Pearce responded, “Shooting people, killing people, robbing 

people, intimidating people, selling drugs, breaking into people’s 

homes, crimes such as that.” Detective Pearce answered in the 

affirmative when the prosecutor asked whether “intimidating 

people” included criminal threats and intimidating witnesses. 

b. The Dispensary and Wiretapped Telephone Calls

Prior to his involvement in the instant case, Detective 

Pearce knew about the marijuana dispensary in question because 

he had served search warrants at the establishment on several 

occasions. Based on his “background, training and personal 

experience,” Detective Pearce opined that this dispensary was 

“connected to” and “run[ ]” by the Grape Street Crips in 

June 2017.3 Additionally, Detective Pearce stated that “[t]here 

3 For instance, Detective Pearce testified that the 

surveillance footage discussed later in this opinion showed that 

the shop contained a mural depicting a deceased and wellrespected member of the Grape Street Crips. Detective Pearce 

testified that the presence of the mural at the business indicated 
8

was a tremendous amount of crime coming out of that weed 

shop.” Detective Pearce recalled seizing “drugs, guns, [and] 

video” from the dispensary on multiple occasions. 

The dispensary was not located in territory claimed by the 

Grape Street Crips, but was instead within an area claimed by 

the 89 Family Swan Bloods gang. Although Detective Pearce was 

not aware of “any issues” or “problems” between the Grape Street 

Crips and the 89 Family Swan Bloods, he stated that the two 

gangs are “[t]raditionally . . . enemies” of one another “because 

the Swans are Bloods and the Grape Street [members] are Crips.” 

Detective Pearce also observed that the dispensary was 

“essentially surrounded by two Blood gangs who were rivals” of 

each other, given that the 89 Family Swan Bloods gang claimed 

territory to the north of the dispensary and the BOP Bloods gang 

claimed the area to the south of the establishment. Detective 

Pearce opined that the dispensary was “susceptible to being 

robbed by rival gangs,” and that guns constituted a 

“fundamentally important” means of defending this territory 

from the Grape Street Crips gang’s rivals. Detective Pearce also 

testified that marijuana shops in Watts are “frequently robbed,” 

and that a dispensary in Watts may need guns for its defense 

even if that particular shop did not have “any gang connection.” 

At trial, the People played recordings of several telephone 

calls that were collected in connection with a wiretap 

investigation conducted in a separate case; Williams concedes 

that in several of these telephone calls, he “discuss[ed] the gang 

that the dispensary had “[a] strong association with the Grape 

Street Crips.” 
9

[(i.e., the Grape Street Crips)] and us[ed] gang language.”4 In a 

December 5, 2017 telephone call, Williams indicated he was 

concerned because someone with a gun had been seen outside the 

marijuana dispensary. Williams remarked, “That man a danger 

to somebody . . . . He a danger to our life. No he a danger to our 

dispensary and to somebody life.” Williams also stated, “I had 

the green light to get out of there to get to something, because 

you know, we don’t have nothing in here.” Detective Pearce 

opined that the “something” Williams referred to in the call was a 

gun.5

c. The Offenses at Issue

On June 14, 2017, Detective Pearce and other LAPD 

officers executed a search warrant at the dispensary and seized 

a digital video recorder (DVR) from the establishment. The 

DVR preserved roughly 10 days of footage recorded from 

4 Although the audio recordings are not in the record 

before us, a transcript of the calls was included in the record. 

5 While Williams at one point states in his appellate 

briefing that this call was “purportedly made by” him, he does not 

dispute that the People offered evidence showing that he 

participated in this telephone call and that he made the 

statements attributed to him in the textual paragraph 

accompanying this footnote. (See Reygoza v. Superior Court

(1991) 230 Cal.App.3d 514, 519 & fn. 4 [criminal case in which 

the Court of Appeal assumed that an assertion made by 

respondent was correct because the “defendant did not dispute 

respondent’s claim in his reply”]; Rudick v. State Bd. of 

Optometry (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 77, 89–90 [concluding that the 

appellants made an implicit concession by “failing to respond in 

their reply brief to the [respondent’s] argument on th[at] point”].) 
10

16 surveillance cameras located inside and outside of the shop. 

Excerpts of the footage from the seized DVR were played for the 

jury at trial.6

On June 10, 2017, Williams and two Grape Street Crips 

gang members (Keyon Faulkner and Deshawn Raspberry), exited 

a vehicle parked outside the dispensary and entered the 

establishment. While Williams was inside the dispensary, he 

placed “what appeared to be [a] firearm” with an extended 

magazine into his waistband, and he shortly thereafter put it in a 

bag that appeared to have another firearm inside of it. Next, 

Williams left the bag in the dispensary’s parking lot, and 

Raspberry retrieved the bag from the lot and dropped it into a 

Buick; that car then “immediately” drove away from the business. 

A person operating a Cadillac drove off toward the Buick, and 

Williams entered a vehicle and followed the Cadillac. Detective

Pearce testified that Williams and the drivers of the other 

vehicles were using a gang tactic called a “caravan”—i.e., the

vehicle transporting the guns is followed by one or more vehicles 

that will distract police officers and ensure that “the car with the 

guns is free to go [to] wherever the destination is.” Detective 

Pearce has seen Grape Street Crips gang members use the

caravan tactic. 

On June 11, 2017, while Williams was in the manager’s 

office at the dispensary, he picked up a Glock firearm, removed

the magazine from the gun, examined the magazine, and put the 

gun down just out of view of the surveillance camera. Later that 

6 Because these excerpts of the footage are not in the 

record before us, we rely on Detective Pearce’s testimony for the 

contents of the video. The next three paragraphs in this section

summarize Detective Pearce’s descriptions of the footage.
11

day, Williams picked up the handgun and placed it in a drawer

located in the office. 

Approximately 45 minutes to an hour before Officer Paiz 

arrived at the dispensary on June 13, 2017, Martell Perry took a 

Beretta handgun equipped with a laser sight out of his jacket 

pocket and handed the weapon to Williams.7 The weapon

thereafter ended up in the hands of a Grape Street Crips gang 

member named Marquis Goss, and Faulkner later held the 

weapon. Faulkner put the gun down, Williams picked it back up, 

and Williams handed the gun to Perry again. Perry later placed 

the handgun in a dumpster located in the parking lot of the 

dispensary. 

The People posed a lengthy hypothetical question to 

Detective Pearce: “[P]lease assume that we’re talking about a 

long-time member of the Grape Street Crips who is considered or 

reached the status of ‘big homie.’ [¶] . . . In June of 2015 the 

Grape Street Crip big homie is helping to manage a marijuana 

dispensary in the area of 90th and South Central Avenue in the 

City and County of Los Angeles in the territory of a rival blood 

gang. [¶] First, on June 10 that same big homie is involved in 

trading handguns for marijuana and potentially other things, 

acting with at least two other Grape Street gang members and 

they use the main office of the dispensary as the trade location.

[¶] And the next day the same gang member possesses a 

handgun with an extended magazine in the main . . . office of that 

same dispensary. [¶] And on June the 13th, three days after the 

first incident, the same big homie possesses a handgun at that 

7 Detective Pearce testified that, “based on the video 

evidence” offered at trial, he believed that Perry was “at the very 

least” an associate of the Grape Street Crips. 
12

marijuana shop, holding it at least two times and being aware of 

it in the shop for over an hour. That same weapon being trading 

[sic] amongst at least two other Grape Street gang members on 

that day inside the dispensary. [¶] Assuming all those facts, can 

you tell us if the conduct in the hypothetical[ ] was . . . done for 

the benefit of or in association of [sic] the Grape Street Crips?” 

Detective Pearce opined that the conduct described in the 

hypothetical was done for the benefit of, and in association with, 

the Grape Street Crips. He testified that this conduct was done 

in association with the gang because “the gang member is with 

other gang members[ ] and . . . at a gang hangout, the weed 

dispensary.” Detective Pearce further testified that “it benefits 

the gang when a gang member has a gun to defend himself and 

the gang at a marijuana dispensary or any type of business 

outside the gang area. . . . [G]angs need guns fundamentally for 

protection and to intimidate people and to kill people when 

needed.”

STANDARD OF REVIEW

“ ‘In addressing a challenge to the sufficiency of the 

evidence supporting a conviction, the reviewing court must 

examine the whole record in the light most favorable to the 

judgment to determine whether it discloses substantial 

evidence—evidence that is reasonable, credible and of solid 

value—such that a reasonable trier of fact could find the 

defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’ ” (People v. Ochoa

(2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 650, 656–657 (Ochoa).) In conducting 

this analysis, the reviewing court must “view[ ] all the evidence 

in the light most favorable to the prosecution, and draw[ ] all 

reasonable inferences in favor of the jury’s findings.” (See People 

v. Perez (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 598, 607 (Perez).)
13

“[W]e must begin with the presumption that the 

evidence . . . was sufficient, and the defendant bears the burden 

of convincing us otherwise. . . . [¶] . . . [A]n appellate court is ‘not 

required to search the record to ascertain whether it contains 

evidence that will sustain [the appellant’s] contentions.’ 

[Citation.] . . . [¶] . . . [T]he defendant must set forth in his 

opening brief all of the material evidence . . . in the light most 

favorable to the People, and then must persuade us that evidence 

cannot reasonably support the jury’s verdict.” (See People v. 

Sanghera (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 1567, 1573–1574.)

This substantial evidence standard applies to sufficiency-ofthe-evidence challenges to enhancements imposed pursuant to 

section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1). (See Ochoa, supra, 

179 Cal.App.4th at pp. 656–657.)

DISCUSSION

Section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1) authorizes the trial court 

to enhance a defendant’s prison sentence if he or she committed a 

felony “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with 

any criminal street gang, with the specific intent to promote, 

further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members . . . .” 

(See § 186.22, subd. (b)(1).) 

For the purposes of section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1), 

“ ‘criminal street gang’ means any ongoing organization, 

association, or group of three or more persons, whether formal or 

informal, having as one of its primary activities the commission 

of one or more of the criminal acts enumerated in paragraphs (1) 

to (25), inclusive, or (31) to (33), inclusive, of subdivision (e) [of 

section 186.22], having a common name or common identifying 

sign or symbol, and whose members individually or collectively 

engage in, or have engaged in, a pattern of criminal gang 
14

activity.” (See § 186.22, subd. (f).) Criminal acts that may 

constitute primary activities of a criminal street gang include: 

“Assault with a deadly weapon or by means of force likely to 

produce great bodily injury, as defined in Section 245”; “[r]obbery, 

as defined in Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 211) of 

Title 8”; “[u]nlawful homicide or manslaughter, as defined in 

Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 187) of Title 8”; “[t]he sale, 

possession for sale, transportation, manufacture, offer for sale, or 

offer to manufacture controlled substances as defined in 

Sections 11054, 11055, 11056, 11057, and 11058 of the Health 

and Safety Code”; “[t]he intimidation of witnesses and victims, as 

defined in Section 136.1”; and “[b]urglary, as defined in Section 

459.” (§ 186.22, subds. (e)(1)–(e)(4), (e)(8), (e)(11).) 

Williams argues the People failed to offer sufficient 

evidence that: (1) Williams possessed a firearm on the three 

occasions in question (a) for the benefit of, at the direction of, or 

in association with a criminal street gang, (b) with the specific 

intent to promote, further, or assist in criminal conduct by gang 

members; and (2) the Grape Street Crips gang has, as one of its 

primary activities, the commission of one or more of the criminal 

acts identified in section 186.22, subdivisions (e)(1) to (e)(25) and 

(e)(31) to (e)(33). For the reasons discussed below, we reject each 

of these contentions.
15

A. There Is Substantial Evidence that Williams 

Committed the Instant Offenses for the Benefit of, at 

the Direction of, or in Association with, a Criminal 

Street Gang with the Specific Intent to Promote,

Further, or Assist in Criminal Conduct by Gang 

Members 

We first address whether there was sufficient evidence that 

Williams possessed the firearms in question in association with 

the Grape Street Crips. As we noted in the Factual Background, 

in the course of responding to a hypothetical scenario based on 

the facts of this case, Detective Pearce opined that the “big 

homie” described therein possessed firearms in association with 

the Grape Street Crips because “th[at] gang member [was] with 

other gang members[ ] and . . . at a gang hangout, the weed 

dispensary.” Detective Pearce had previously testified that 

Faulkner, Raspberry, and Goss were Grape Street Crips gang 

members who—according to the surveillance footage—were

present at the dispensary on June 10 and/or 13, 2017 and had

handled one or more of the firearms that Williams unlawfully 

possessed. As far as we can discern, Williams seems to argue

that no reasonable jury could have relied on Detective Pearce’s

testimony identifying these individuals as Grape Street Crips 

gang members because the detective did “not explain if that 

information is based on personal knowledge or inadmissible 

hearsay.” Williams thus suggests that Detective Pearce’s 

testimony is “ ‘purely conclusory and factually 

unsupported . . . .’ ” 

As the Attorney General correctly points out, Detective 

Pearce testified that he investigated gangs for over 10 years, he 

had previously been assigned to the area claimed by the Grape 
16

Street Crips, he spoke to “countless” victims of crime, and he 

discussed the Grape Street Crips gang’s activities with over 100 

of its members. Williams does not contend that this experience is 

an insufficient foundation for Detective Pearce’s testimony 

regarding Faulkner’s, Raspberry’s, and Goss’s membership in the 

gang. Rather, it appears Williams complains that Detective 

Pearce did not explicitly connect his testimony identifying these 

men as gang members with the detective’s investigative 

experience, such that this testimony could have been “based on 

personal knowledge or inadmissible hearsay.” 

Williams misapprehends the standard of review. “We must 

presume all intendments and presumptions in favor of the 

judgment, and ‘ “ ‘on matters as to which the record is silent, . . . 

error must be affirmatively shown.’ ” ’ ” (See People v. Anthony

(2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 1102, 1139 (Anthony).) 

If Williams believed that Detective Pearce’s testimony 

regarding the gang membership of these three individuals was 

speculative, then it was incumbent on him to cross-examine 

Detective Pearce on that point during the proceedings below. On 

this record, however, we must presume that Detective Pearce’s 

testimony on this point was based on his experience investigating 

the Grape Street Crips, and not on some unspecified inadmissible 

evidence. (Cf. Anthony, supra, 32 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1139–1140 

[invoking the presumption in favor of the judgment to reject a 

hearsay challenge to the admission of certain expert testimony 

because the record did not disclose the underlying source of the 

expert’s testimony].) Further, we note the detective testified that

on June 10, 2017, Williams and other persons visiting the 

dispensary used a gang tactic designed to prevent the police from 

finding the handgun (i.e., the caravan tactic), which further 
17

indicates that Williams possessed that weapon in association 

with his gang.

Thus, there was substantial evidence that Williams 

committed at least the June 10 and June 13, 2017 possession 

offenses “in association with” the Grape Street Crips.

Next, we turn to whether there was sufficient evidence that 

Williams possessed the firearms on the three dates at issue here 

for the benefit of the Grape Street Crips gang and with the 

specific intent of promoting, furthering, or assisting in criminal 

conduct by its members. According to Detective Pearce’s 

testimony, the surveillance video showed that Williams possessed 

one or more handguns on three separate occasions at a 

dispensary that was connected to, and run by, the Grape Street 

Crips. The detective also testified that the dispensary was

“susceptible to being robbed by rival gangs” in part because it 

was not located in territory claimed by the Grape Street Crips

and was “essentially surrounded by two Blood gangs” that are 

“traditional[ ]” enemies of the Grape Street Crips. Furthermore, 

as discussed above, there was substantial evidence that on at 

least two occasions, Williams possessed a firearm at the 

dispensary in association with other members of the gang. 

Additionally, a reasonable jury could have found that during the

December 5, 2017 telephone call discussed previously, Williams 

expressed an interest in securing a firearm to protect the 

dispensary. (See fn. 5 and its accompanying paragraph, ante.)

Under these circumstances, the jury could reasonably have 

inferred that Williams possessed one or more firearms on the 

three dates in question to benefit the Grape Street Crips by 

ensuring that a business run by the gang would not be robbed. 

Similarly, a reasonable jury could have also found that Williams 
18

possessed these firearms with the specific intent to promote, 

further, or assist the criminal conduct of the gang’s members 

because the availability of a firearm at the dispensary would

allow Williams or his confederates to use the weapon to batter, 

assault, or commit a homicide offense against any rival gang 

member or other aggressor who attempted to rob the dispensary. 

Indeed, as explained in Discussion part B, post, shooting people, 

killing people, and intimidating people are some of the gang’s 

primary activities.

Williams nonetheless insists that this evidence was not 

sufficient to show that he possessed the guns in question to 

“defend . . . gang territory” because it was possible he had these 

weapons “at the dispensary for the non-gang reason of protecting 

the marijuana, cash, and people that worked there” and “a 

marijuana dispensary in [this area] would need a gun even if [it]

was not gang affiliated.” 

Williams apparently ignores the evidence that the 

dispensary did belong to the Grape Street Crips at that time, 

including the surveillance footage showing that Williams 

possessed the weapons in association with Grape Street Crips 

gang members on multiple occasions at the establishment; the 

presence of a mural of a well-respected and deceased Grape 

Street Crips gang member at the business (see fn. 3, ante); and, of 

course, Detective Pearce’s testimony that the dispensary was 

connected to, and run by, the gang (testimony that was 

presumptively based on his extensive experience investigating 

this gang). Because a court assessing a sufficiency-of-theevidence challenge must “draw[ ] all reasonable inferences in 

favor of the jury’s findings,” (see Perez, supra, 18 Cal.App.5th at 

p. 607), we reject Williams’s mere argument that even though 
19

there was evidence the dispensary belonged to the gang, he 

somehow committed these crimes for solely his “own personal 

benefit” and not to further the interests of the Grape Street 

Crips. 

B. There Is Substantial Evidence that the Grape Street 

Crips Satisfies the “Primary Activities” Element of 

the Statutory Definition of a “Criminal Street Gang”

As we noted earlier in this opinion, when Detective Pearce 

was asked to identify “the primary activities of the Grape Street 

Crips,” he responded: “Shooting people, killing people, robbing 

people, intimidating people, selling drugs, breaking into people’s 

homes, crimes such as that.” Williams contends that, “like the 

expert in In re Alexander L. [(2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 605

(Alexander L.), whose testimony did not constitute substantial 

evidence on the primary activities element], there is no 

information on whether [Detective Pearce’s] list of the gang’s 

primary activities was based on his own investigations, court 

records of convictions, or inadmissible hearsay,” and “[n]o 

specifics were elicited as to the circumstances of the crimes he 

listed, or where, when, or how the expert had obtained the 

information.” Thus, Williams seems to argue that Detective 

Pearce’s testimony on this point was too “conclusory” for the jury 

to infer reasonably that these crimes are among the Grape Street 

Crips gang’s primary activities. 

Detective Pearce’s testimony regarding the primary 

activities of the Grape Street Crips is clearly distinguishable 

from the gang expert’s testimony in Alexander L. There, when 

the gang expert was asked about the primary activities of the 

gang in question, “he replied: ‘I know they’ve committed quite a 

few assaults with a deadly weapon, several assaults. I know 
20

they’ve been involved with auto thefts, auto/vehicle burglaries, 

felony graffiti, narcotic violations.’ ” (See Alexander L., supra, 

149 Cal.App.4th at p. 611.) The Court of Appeal concluded that 

this testimony was insufficient because “[n]o specifics were 

elicited as to the circumstances of these crimes, or where, when 

or how [the expert] had obtained the information[,] [h]e did not 

directly testify that criminal activities constituted [the gang’s] 

primary activities,” and, “[e]ven if [the panel] could reasonably 

infer that [the expert] meant that the primary activities of the 

gang were the crimes to which he referred, his testimony lacked 

an adequate foundation.” (See id. at pp. 611–612.) In particular, 

the Alexander L. court observed that it could not “know whether 

the basis of [the expert’s] testimony on this point was reliable, 

because information establishing reliability was never elicited 

from him at trial” and, thus, “[i]t [was] impossible to tell whether 

his claimed knowledge of the gang’s activities might have been 

based on highly reliable sources, such as court records of

convictions, or entirely unreliable hearsay.” (See id. at p. 612.)

In contrast, Detective Pearce identified expressly the 

aforementioned crimes as the Grape Street Crips gang’s primary 

activities, and, as discussed in more detail in Discussion part A,

ante, the detective offered testimony showing that he had 

extensive experience investigating the Grape Street Crips. Thus, 

unlike the expert in Alexander L., Detective Pearce had set forth 

an adequate foundation for his testimony regarding whether the 

gang’s “ ‘ “chief” or “principal” occupations’ ” include the crimes 

listed earlier. (See Alexander L., supra, 149 Cal.App.4th at p. 613 

[noting that a gang’s primary activity is its chief or principal 

occupation, and that an officer’s “ ‘conversations with the 

defendants and with other [gang] members, his personal 
21

investigations of hundreds of crimes committed by gang 

members, as well as information from his colleagues and various 

law enforcement agencies’ ” may constitute an adequate 

foundation for testimony regarding that gang’s primary 

activities].)

Williams resists this conclusion and argues that “Detective 

Pearce did not offer whether his list of the gang’s primary 

activities was based on his own investigations, court records of 

convictions, or inadmissible hearsay.” Once again, in accordance 

with the applicable standard of review, we presume that 

Detective Pearce’s testimony concerning the gang’s primary 

activities was drawn from the vast investigative experience he 

described during his testimony, and not on some unknown 

inadmissible source. (See Anthony, supra, 32 Cal.App.5th at 

pp. 1139–1140.)

Williams also contends that evidence introduced at trial

showing that two Grape Street Crips gang members were 

convicted of certain offenses identified in section 186.22, 

subdivision (e) (e.g., murder and criminal threats) does not

establish that these criminal acts are the primary activities of the 

gang. Because Detective Pearce’s testimony in and of itself 

constitutes substantial evidence of the Grape Street Crips gang’s

primary activities, we need not address this argument further. 

(See Alexander L., supra, 149 Cal.App.4th at p. 611 [“ ‘Sufficient 

proof of the gang’s primary activities might consist of evidence 

that the group’s members consistently and repeatedly have 

committed criminal activity listed in the gang statute.’ 

[Citation.] Expert testimony based on an adequate factual 

foundation might also be sufficient.”].)
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DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

BENDIX, Acting P. J.

We concur:

CHANEY, J.

FEDERMAN, J.*

* Judge of the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, 

assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of 

the California Constitution.