Felon in the Family?Follow

My brother was arrested two months ago, give or take a week, for attempted murder. All the evidence I have seen thus far has shown him to be not only innocent but appalling so yet the District Attorney has been hell bent on prosecuting him.

His story, I.E. the Eeeevil racist sociopath’s story:

My brother is 31 years old, still lives at home, goes to night school and has worked at the same liquor store for the past 10 years, so much for how pathetic his life is.

At 8pm on the night of the incident he was riding home from work on his bike and passed three Hispanic men (re: known gang members) getting out of a car. He passed them and proceeded down the street. At this point they ran nearly 150 yards to get up behind him and because he was unaware of their approach and so was not traveling much faster than an average run, one of them managed to grab a hold of his backpack and pulled him off his bike. They then proceeded to punch, kick and pummel him with beer bottles. At some point, while lying on the ground in the fettle position, my brother pulled out a small two inch knife he uses to open boxes with and began to swing it back and forth about him hitting at least two and possibly all three of them. One of them was hit bad enough to go down and the other two grabbed hold of him and they dragged him away.

My brother, shaken and sore but not, in his words, badly hurt got back on his bike and rode it home as fast as he could. He then crept quietly into the house so as not to wake our parents, showered and threw his bloody clothing in the washing machine and went to bed. The next morning, when asked by our mother why he was so banged up replied that he took a header over the handle bars of his bike on the way home the night before. She believed this because my brother is an avid mountain biker with almost no fear of hurting himself so has done much more than a header over the handlebars a time or two.

Why he didn't call the police is beyond me and apparently him.

Their Story, A.K.A. the “Traumatized victims”:

The three “victims” state that they went by the liquor store my brother works at, at about 5pm and attempted to buy several 40 oz bottles of beer. The say he not only refused their money but told them, quit rudely, to get out of the store. After some words were exchanged, they then went to another liquor store purchased their beer and found a nice spot to kick back in their car and drink.

At this point their stories differ. Victim one states they first stopped and ate dinner. Victim two states they thought about stopping to eat dinner but never did and victim three states they stopped by a friends house to kick back and drink but he was eating dinner and didn’t want to.

They all agree they then parked their car and began to drink.

Again their stories differ. All three state they saw my brother riding towards them and one of them decided to get out of the car and ask him why he was so rude to them earlier.

One guy says the guy who got out walked 10 feet away from the car and he and my brother started arguing and my brother yelled several racial epitaphs, then the guy walked back to the car and collapsed bleeding.

The second guy states the guy who got out of the car walked 20-30 feet down the street to talk to my brother and all he saw was my brothers arm swing up then the guy walked back to the car and collapsed.

The guy who got out of the car and was stabbed, bad enough he had to be taken to the hospital, claims he was stabbed by other gang members at a gas station several miles away from the spot the first two claim he was stabbed, or so his story went when his two friends did a drop and run at the hospital.

It wasn’t until several days latter that the first two guy’s story was taken down by the police. The hospital staff did what was required of them and called the police when a man, nearly dead of stab wounds, is dropped off at their door. The stabbed man gave the “Stabbed by gang members at a gas station” story to the police first. It wasn’t until his wife and sister informed the police several days latter that he and his friends wanted to change his story.

The Arrest or how we bag ourselves a KKK creep:

From the evidence I have read, or heard second hand from the Attorney, the police preceded like this: after interviewing the “victims” and taking several weeks to find out where the perpetrator (my brother) worked they watched the store until they figured out who he was and where he lived. They then watched him for several days.

At some point they must have decided they had enough evidence to arrest him because they then called our parents home number and left a message saying that “Detective So-and-so needed to talk with him”. My brother got home that day listened to the message, assumed it was about something at work (there is always some incident happening in or near the liquor store they want to talk to him about) changed and left to go to the grocery store.

The police, watching the house and assuming he was on the run, followed him and waited until he pulled into the grocery store parking lot to pull up behind him and arrest him.

The police then turn my parent’s home upside down looking for evidence. From the top of my parents closet to the bottom of the kitchen pantry not a single place was not cleaned out and thrown into the middle of the floor. At the end of their exhaustive search they left with one small folding knife, one mountain bike and several mountain biking magazines, all obtained from his bedroom.

I do have to say the police did a good job of not hurting the family German Shepard. They even made sure he had food and water in the large cage he is kept in at night and they did not touch the large locked gun case my father keeps in his office.

My brother was booked for attempted murder with special circumstances of racial hatred, or some such wording. $540,000 bail, $40,000 of it for the racial hatred part. He was stripped, had a full body search and had his entire body photographed for tattoos, identifying scars etc. When the photos were shown to the D.A. a week later she told them to do it again not just once but twice. Why? Because my brother not only does not have the White Power/ KKK tattoos she was looking for but he has zero tattoos period.

Let me go on a small tangent here to make a point. My family has lived in the same house for the last 23 years. My brother and I grew up surrounded by Hispanic gangs and he still lives surrounded by them. My brother worked in a busy liquor store in the same neighborhood visited by these same gang members everyday. My brother is 6 feet tall, blond and blued eyed. (I, on the other hand, look like a big Mexican; poor guy got the shallow end of the gene pool apparently) It goes a long ways towards showing the locals tolerance levels that they can handle a white boy in their neighborhood but the local D.A. has to jump on the racist bandwagon as soon as it is offered to them.

The D.A.’s part in this or lets railroad the *****:

So my brother is arrested on a Thursday evening and is booked around 1am that night. He is not arraigned until the following Tuesday though and because his lawyer was hoping the D.A., who just got the case that morning, would look at it and toss it out he postponed the plea until the following Tuesday. That following Tuesday the D.A. declined to say anything about the case other than that they will prosecute it so my brother entered a plea of not guilty. The following week was a requested bail reduction hearing, the D.A. argued against it and we lost. Two weeks later was another hearing, our lawyer had still not received all the evidence promised him by the D.A. so he asked for it to be postponed to the following week. The following week the D.A. finally gives the lawyer the last of the evidence he asked for and says “Now I understand why you think this case has no merit” (she must have just read the evidence herself after four weeks in her hands). With this revelation fresh in her mind the lawyer tried once again to get the bail reduced and a week later it was once again turned down so my parents forked over the $54,000 to a bail bonds man to secure the $540,00 to secure my brothers release. $54,000 they will never see again by the way because bail bonds men keep 10% of what they guarantee.

In Ventura County, CA the D.A. office has a quire procedure they must follow when an Assistant D.A. decides the case they have been persuing really does not have the evidence required to prosecute it. They have to go before a judge and both sides present their evidence and one to two weeks later after a panel of D.A. have looked at the evidence they decide if it really should go to court.

That panel of D.A. had the evidence presented to them today, strange thing though, far from showing the evidence and stating this is why I think we don’t have the strength of evidence to prosecute our Assistant D.A. showed the evidence and argued why she does have enough. She even tried to show he was racist. I don’t think my brother has a single friend who is not Hispanic or black.

I guess we will find out in two weeks if my family gets to spend the fall in court and my brother possibly gets to spend the next 25 years in prison.

Oh, did I mention my mother works in the Civil Service and if my brother gets charged with this felony she loses her security clearance, a clearance she needs to do her job? No? Now I did.

Wow sorry to hear that. To bad your brother didn't call the police immediatly, might have helped him make his case. It sure seems a little unbelievable that your brother would just randomly jump three guys by himself with a 2 inch knife. I wonder if the DA took that into consideration. Good luck to you and your family I hope the truth comes out at trial.

It's a sad ***** up world when your primary coping mechanism is denial. I had intended to mention that denial is how my brother tends to deal with **** but forgot to.

As for the Security Clearance thing: My mother handles the budgets for several flight squadrons, we are talking 10s or possibly 100s of millions of dollars and she is the only one who knows where all of it is at any one time and where all of it goes unless a lengthy audit is done. It is assumed that is too much temptation for someone who may have something that can be held over their head, held over their head.

That still doesn't make sense to me, but then again I'm assuming that others use logic when making decisions. It will suck if he's convicted, like varus said, a white man accused of a hate crime in CA...bad!

...because white skin = ability to listen, reason and judge fairly?

Not that I expect varus to answer that question in anything but the affirmative.

White as the day is long. My father is probably 1/4 or an 1/8 Blackfoot American Indian but wont cop to it. It's a Southern thing.

We have a Private Lawyer a good one to from what I can see. He is as dumb founded by the whole thing as we are.

No witnesses other than the "victims" themselves and it was several weeks before my brother was picked up so he has no provable injuries.

Only a white man would be accused of a hate crime in the first place. Sad, but true.

The best thing your family can do is to hire the absolute best lawyer you can. And push for some publicity. Air these facts befroe the general public before a judge issues an order and wraps the case in secrecy.

Oh, and sue the **** out of the government when it's over. You may recoup the costs in a settlement. But the only way it will work is with publicity. Nothing quite like throwing a spotlight on a gov't ****** to get some hush money flowing.

I didn't want to point this out, but it is truth. During Rodney King and the subsequent riots afterwards, only the cops were accused of hate crimes. Certainly not the 4 black youths who pulled a trucker out if his rig and beat him retarded.

We know. Not to mention he damn near had a mental breakdown allready because of the arbitrary and sadistic rules you have to follow in jail.

Ten minutes to shower, twice a week, in cold water.

[li] Thirty minutes to eat, if you are at the back of the line tough ****.

[li]Two hours a day outside the cell and if there is a lockdown during your two hours you lose the remaining time, and if it falls during your ten minute shower or thirty minutes to eat tough ****.

[li]No outside food, writing material etc. you want that stuff buy it from their overpriced comissary.

[li]Two visitors a visit twice a week for thirt minutes a visit.

[li]Guards have carte blanch to decide if you did or said something to **** them off and the enforce the rules arbitrarily.

Case in point: He recieved 3 demerits over a weeks time. One for not wearing his socks when they called everyone out of their cells at 1am in the morning for searches. One for bringing a banana back to his cell from lunch and one for using the call buzzer "inappropriatly." He wanted to know if he was getting his two hours outside the cell soon. He had seen other guys use the buzzer to find out what the scores on a game was.

His punishment: No use of the comissary for two weeks - the only place he could buy soap, deoderant, toothpaste, or snacks. He was one stinky, hungry motherfuker at the end of those two weeks.

Yep.


That prison thing sucks. You'd think they'd at least supply soap. I'd bet it'd cut down on riots.

Git you live in Ventura, I'm guessing if you are in a large Mexican community you must be close to Oxnard. What city do you live in?

My big sis works for a company that handles defense contracts. Part of the application process was an FBI check on every member of her immediate family.

Her employer isn't a government agency, though I'd have a hunch they'd be even more cautious.

As others have said, it's very, very unfortunate he didn't call the police.

Hopefully his attorney can dig up plenty of information regarding the gang affiliation of the "victims". I don't think that plays well with too many juries.

As to why he didn't call the cops, I can kinda understand it. When you live in a neighboorhood like that there's something of an unwritten rule that you just don't call the cops after the fact unless someone ends up in the hospital. If the cops show up during an altercation that's one thing, but a scuffle in the street? No one calls the cops after that. His brother presumably had no idea he'd hurt one of them that badly.

Having worked at a store in a neighboorhood like that, you go out of your way not to "rock the boat" with the locals. If they commit a crime, you call it in as part of your job (nothing personal, and it's usually not taken personally). But if he were to call the cops everytime a group of gangbangers bothered him, he's have no end of guys hassling him. Given that he's more or less a stationary target (they all know where he works, right?), that's just a really bad idea. You just let the little stuff go. From his point of view, he had some bruises and scrapes, but that's it. No point in calling anyone.