Opinion ID: 1172635
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Murder of Jerome Dunn

Text: In 1982, defendant Barry Williams, also known as Big Time, was a member of the 89th Street Family Bloods, a street gang in South Central Los Angeles. At that time, the 89th Street Family Bloods associated with other Bloods gangs in Los Angeles against rival Crips gangs, especially the Avalon Garden Crips. The Crips wore blue and the Bloods wore red. On the morning of March 25, 1982, defendant led a meeting of Blood gang members. The purpose of the meeting was to protect the neighborhood from various Crip gangs. Some present had weapons; defendant had a .38-caliber pistol. It specifically was stated at the meeting that anyone present who wanted to go out and shoot rival gang members could go out and shoot. In the afternoon of the same day, Marcellus Gray (who had died by the time of trial) and a friend, Kathleen Gurley, drove, in Gray's blue van, to the Food Barn near the corner of Rosecrans and Central in Los Angeles. Around 6:30 p.m., Gurley testified, Gray came running into the market (where Gurley was shopping) and agitatedly recounted that his van had been stolen from him, at gunpoint, by two African-American men, while he was in the parking lot waiting for Gurley. Gray and Gurley reported the theft to police, then returned to their homes. Shortly after the van was stolen, it was driven towards the intersection of 88th Place and McKinley Avenue. When the van arrived at the intersection, Kenneth Hayes, 22, and the victim, Jerome Dunn (also known as Bone), were riding by on their bicycles. Both Hayes and Dunn associated with the Grape Street Crips gang. The two were on their way to see their girlfriends. Hayes, who had recently been released from Soledad prison, was wearing a blue jacket, blue corduroy pants and blue hair rollers. Dunn was wearing beige corduroy pants, a blue windbreaker, white shoes and a blue cap. According to Officer Johnson, Dunn was dressed the way a typical Crip gang member would dress in that area, although a person could be dressed that way and not be a Crip. At that time, Patricia Lewis (who lived in the neighborhood) was a passenger in a station wagon that was stopped, northbound on McKinley, at the stop sign at 88th Place. Jean Rivers (who did not testify at the trial) was driving. The street lights were on; it was twilight and misty. Lewis testified she saw a van at the intersection of 88th and McKinley; she identified a photograph of Marcellus Gray's van as depicting the one she had seen. Lewis also testified that two young men rode by on bicycles, one following the other, and that the van then slammed on its brakes and turned so it could follow the first bicyclist. According to Lewis, the station wagon in which she was riding backed up to allow the van to proceed through the intersection, and, when the van paused momentarily at the northeast corner of 88th Place, she was able to see who was inside. When the van started to turn, she looked directly  for more than 20 seconds  into the face of the driver of the van, whom she identified as defendant. She noticed a shiny object in the upper right side of defendant's mouth. She also noticed a passenger was riding alongside defendant and the occupants of the van were laughing. Dunn crossed McKinley Avenue, while Hayes followed at some distance. As Dunn rode his bicycle past the van, Patricia Lewis heard the driver of the van say, Let's go f____ him up. Hayes and Lewis each observed that the van then drove west on 88th Place and stopped near where Dunn had stopped on his bicycle. Someone in the van spoke with Dunn. As Hayes rode closer on his bicycle, he heard chattering and laughter inside the van. According to Hayes, Dunn shook his head in response to something said to him by an occupant of the van. Hayes came up behind the van on its left side, noticing that the curtains on its back window were closed. He stopped within three or four feet of the driver's door and could see the driver's hands on the steering wheel. Hayes testified that a Black person's hand and right arm then came out of the van driver's window, holding a handgun, at which time he could no longer see the driver's hands on the steering wheel. The muzzle of the gun was four or five inches from Dunn's head. Hayes watched as the shooter fired about four shots at Dunn, who fell from his bicycle after the first shot. Dunn jumped and blood came from his mouth and nose. In all, the shooter fired five.38-caliber bullets into Dunn's head and upper body, killing him. The shooting occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. Patricia Lewis testified that, as she watched the van, she leaned over and rolled down the station wagon's driver's side window. According to Lewis, she did so because she was nosey. Defendant was wearing a dark jacket. Lewis saw defendant's hand come out through the driver's side window of the van, holding a gun. At that point, Lewis testified, Rivers drove the station wagon forward across 88th Place and Lewis heard three or four gunshots. Rivers then drove to Lewis's home, nearby on 87th Place. As the two women were speaking before Lewis entered her house, Lewis looked up and saw the van again, speeding back along Wadsworth Avenue, heading south, towards 88th Place. At this time, Lewis saw Bongo and Mark Williams in the van with defendant. Less than an hour later, police recovered Marcellus Gray's van, approximately four blocks from the scene of the shooting. Kenneth Hayes identified it as the van that was used in Jerome Dunn's killing. In April 1982, after Patricia Lewis selected defendant's photograph from a photographic showup, defendant was arrested for the murder of Jerome Dunn. On several occasions before trial, defendant acknowledged killing Dunn. First, according to John Gardner (a former Blood gang member), about 9 o'clock on the evening Dunn was shot, defendant told Gardner that he (defendant) shot, took out  he said say bloody shot and took out of the box some fool A.G. quarters who was a gangster dude with flew clothes on. (In gang parlance, this meant that he had shot dead a gang member who was wearing blue clothing.) Gardner testified defendant repeatedly stated it was Silky who had been killed, but that, walking off, he muttered under his breath the victim was actually Bone (i.e., Dunn). Defendant also said to Gardner that the police were looking for him and he intended to go over on the westside and lay low for a while. Second, about a week and a half after Dunn's shooting, defendant spoke again with Gardner, at a house frequented by gang members. According to Gardner, defendant and he discussed the incidents of March 25, and defendant stated that he took this fool out of the box, you know, from A.G. Crips. Third, Arthur Cox testified that, while he and defendant were in Los Angeles County jail together, defendant in two conversations told Cox that fellow Blood gang member Curtis Thomas, who was in the van with defendant when Jerome Dunn was killed, actually shot Dunn, but that it was he, defendant, who told Curtis Thomas to shoot. According to Cox, defendant also said that all of the Crips in the jail were trying to get him for killing Bones. Subsequent to his arrest, defendant attempted to intimidate prosecution witness Patricia Lewis by arranging for Mark Williams (no relation to defendant), a fellow gang member (also known as Snoop Dog), to shoot up Lewis's home while she and her family were inside. The shooting of Lewis's house occurred on an evening in January 1983. Lewis was home with her husband and grandson. Forty-five or fifty shots were discharged into the house, possibly by more than one shooter. Lewis, holding the baby, crawled to safety in a back bedroom. Nothing like this had ever happened to Lewis prior to her witnessing Jerome Dunn's murder. As a consequence of the shooting of her house and various threatening phone calls she had received, Lewis became afraid for her life and testified falsely at the preliminary hearing that she did not know whose arm had held the gun that was used to shoot Dunn. Kenneth Simmons, a former 89th Street Family Bloods gang member, at first testified he did not remember having a conversation with Mark Williams. Later, Simmons testified that Mark Williams had told him defendant wanted Williams to scare the lady on 87th Street who was going to court on him. After refreshing his recollection by listening to a tape of a conversation he had had with Officer Michael Mejia, Simmons provided more detail. Simmons testified he had a conversation with Mark Williams on January 7, 1983, while the two of them were in an alley getting high. Williams told Simmons that Williams and others had gone to take care of some business involving a witness for defendant, but it wasn't done right. Simmons specifically testified that Williams told him it was defendant who wanted this business taken care of and that the witness involved lived on 87th Street. Mark Williams denied shooting at Patricia Lewis's house, and denied having any conversation with Kenneth Simmons regarding any such shooting. Williams admitted, however, that he was a member of the 89th Street Family Bloods at the time Dunn was shot, as well as at the time Lewis's house was shot up, and that he was still a Blood at the time of trial. Williams also admitted he knew defendant and knew that Kenneth Simmons considered himself to be a member of the 89th Street Family Bloods.