Eastside Riva article. July 30th 2008

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

The Riverside County district attorney's office will seek the death penalty against a man charged with murder and labeled an East Side Riva gang member by authorities.

Prosecutors announced Wednesday that Jesse Manzo, 21, could face execution if convicted in the shooting of Raymond Franklin, 23, who was found dead in his driveway on the afternoon of May 2 in the northern part of Riverside

District Attorney Rod Pacheco said the slaying was done to benefit the East Side Riva gang, which was targeted last August in the district attorney's gang injunction.

"The East Side Riva gang is alive and well and continues to plague the community by targeting young African-Americans who call the Eastside home," Pacheco said in a written statement. "This violent gang must be stopped."

The injunction, which was made permanent in January, prohibits the up to 600 gang members, mostly Hispanic, from loitering, associating with other gang members or wearing gang attire in a designated safety zone in Riverside's Eastside neighborhood spanning to UCR.

Those found in violation of the injunction can be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. Parolees who violate the injunction could face prison time.

Manzo is charged with the killing on Mathews Street, which occurred outside the safety zone. He is not charged with violating the injunction. His public defender previously denied Manzo was a gang member or that the East Side Riva gang still exists.

District attorney's officials said Franklin was a father of three children, after growing up in the Eastside. DA officials said he was not a gang member and was training to become a correctional officer.

An East Side Riva member said Franklin claimed to know people from a rival black gang. That friend of Manzo's told police he was talking to Franklin on the phone and joking that East Side Riva members would go "to his house and beat him," according to a sworn affidavit in support of an arrest warrant.

When Manzo overheard the conversation, his friend told police Manzo biked to Franklin's house and opened fire, the affidavit stated.

After his May 23 arrest, Manzo told police he was hurt the day of the killing in a fight with a rival black gang member, but was with a girlfriend at the time of the shooting.

Manzo is charged with a special circumstance of committing a death to benefit a gang, which makes him eligible for the death penalty.

thats some crazy shit