Mynisha Crenshaw pt. 1

Mynisha: In death, she brought change to a beleaguered city that resonates still
Stacia Glenn, Andrew Edwards and Mike Cruz, Staff Writers
Posted: 12/27/2008 07:09:28 AM PST


SAN BERNARDINO - She could have just been another dead child, slain far too young in a city overrun by gangs and their guns.
There have been so many. Too many, like Anthony Michael Ramirez and Traveil Williams and Jarred Mitchell.

But Mynisha Crenshaw's name has lived on since vengeful gangbangers opened fire on a run-down apartment as a family sat down to dinner.

At the time, when Mynisha drew her final breaths of life on the kitchen floor of an apartment complex where parents were afraid to let their children outside to play, few knew the name of the 11-year-old girl.

That would change.

Before long, Mynisha and the circumstances of her death became a focal point for the mayoral election. Outraged

Tonesha Williams, 32, right, sits on a stairwell at the Cedarwood Apartments in San Bernardino on Wednesday. The San Bernardino Police Department has closed the Mynisha Crenshaw case. The 11-year-old girl was shot and killed at the apartments by gang members on Nov. 13, 2005. (Gabriel Luis Acosta/Staff Photographer)marchers took to the street to rally against violence. The Sun pulled together a collection of the best and the brightest minds in the forging of Mynisha's Circle. Police rounded up a dozen gangbangers, any and all they could find who played even the tiniest role in the girl's death. And within five months, a U.S. senator uttered her name before Congress as part of an anti-crime bill.
Each time, the message was the same: Enough.

Of course, there have been more murders since Mynisha. There have been stumbles and missteps and political errors. The streets of San Bernardino remain tough and hard, and children continue to pledge allegiance to gangs and fall victim to them.

Yet, three years and one month since Mynisha died, the homicide rate has dropped, there are more programs available for kids and new policing strategies have pushed San Bernardino out of the top rankings of the nation's most dangerous cities.

The loss of innocence stayed on the city's collective consciousness for a while, but has since faded. Mynisha's killers have all been convicted on some level, ending the final chapter of this little girl's legacy.

But many remember. Some will never forget.

"We saw so many kids being killed. Those are the true innocent victims through senseless gang violence," said San Bernardino police Officer Travis Walker, a 14-year gang expert who testified at the Mynisha trials.

"Hopefully, the community doesn't lose sight of the fact that we need to still be vigilant in not letting gang crime continue to put fear into the city."


Revenge-minded killers


The shotcallers of a notorious gang - Pimps, Players, Hustlers and Gangsters - first hatched a retaliation plot in the fall of 2005 as low-level gangbangers washed cars feet away to raise money for funeral expenses of one of their own who had just been gunned down.

Then came Nov. 13, 2005.

Ten of the gangbangers swaggered toward the courtyard of the Cedarwood apartments, a dilapidated complex that offered tenuous shelter for those who couldn't afford more.

Shawn Davis fired at a man who dove for cover, believing it was a rival gang member. It turned out to be his cousin, Lucky Kelley.

Spooked by the gunshots that could have alarmed families cooking dinner inside roach-infested apartments, the PPHG crew turned to leave. That is, until Marquis Deshawn Taylor, a young hanger-on, pointed the gangbangers to Unit 22, insisting that's where the rival gang was hiding out.

Davis and a few others continued their retreat. One gangbanger was ordered to the corner in case cops cruised by. Then four pulled guns from their waistbands and sprayed the apartment just as Mynisha stood up to get her stepfather a taco.

Sixteen bullets from a 9 mm handgun, a 45-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a 7.62 assault-style weapon drilled through the walls. One pierced Mynisha's chest, dropping her to the ground.

A little girl who worshipped Spongebob Squarepants and munched sunflower seeds paid the price for the carelessness and callousness of a street gang.

In the end, her death had another outcome: Who might have guessed that the shots sounded the eventual end of the gang's reign?

"I never thought this would snowball into actually arresting 12 people and basically crippling a street gang," said lead investigator Sgt. Gary Robertson. "This case just leapfrogged from one person to the next."

Authorities arrested the first PPHG member within a week. Judith Valles, then the mayor, announced that the city was in "full deployment." Police heavily patrolled the neighborhood and Robertson made the rounds, interrogating every gang member he could find.

A year later, a dozen PPHG members were in custody and many faced life sentences in prison.

This was a new benchmark for police and prosecutors alike. It's usually just the shooter and maybe an accomplice or two who take the heat in a homicide.

Deputy District Attorney Ron Webster said the number of suspects was "extraordinary" and Robertson believes it made department history for being the largest number of suspects arrested for the same murder.

"It went far beyond who pulled the trigger," Walker explained. "This wrapped up people who were involved in the planning process and acted as lookouts.

"It should be a model for conducting future investigations."

The investigation into PPHG sent many of its members scurrying into surrounding towns and the High Desert, seeking relief from police who asked too many questions.

Today, it's unknown how many of the 100 or so members remain in San Bernardino.

"The mere nature of the crime is not well-received in the gang community," Walker said. "There was so much that was put into this, so much pressure, that it really drove this gang out of the city."


Evidence in the thousands


The investigation generated thousands of pages of police reports, witness interviews, jail calls and crime scene documentation. At court hearings leading up to the trials, Webster often gave the bevy of defense lawyers stacks of new discovery and dozens of recorded discs.

Although Webster can list from memory details of the case, it wasn't always his burden to push through courtroom after courtroom in search of justice for Mynisha.

It started with then-lead prosecutor Cheryl Kersey, who received death threats over the case before handing the case to Webster and moving to a judge's seat.

Webster had 2,500 pages of reports and court transcripts to plow through. Then he had to scan 1,000 photographs to piece together the crime scene.

"You've got to go through quite a lot just to get a sense of what you have to work with," Webster said.

The three trials are now over and 11 of the 12 defendants were sentenced this month.

Four of the defendants - reputed street gang godfather Sidikiba Greenwood, high-ranking leader Sinque Morrison, Michael Barnett Jr. and Harold Phillips - have all been convicted in jury trials and sentenced to state prison. Three others, Davis, Patrick Lair and Alonzo Monk, took plea bargains that required them to cooperate with prosecutors and testify at trials.

Five other defendants, Tyshon Harris, Baybra Edwards, Khaalis Atkins, Marquis Taylor and Royal Small, took plea bargains with prison sentences.

The case is effectively over in Superior Court.

Small has yet to be sentenced but is in custody in Riverside County, where he awaits trial on three felony charges of possessing a firearm with a juvenile conviction, possessing stolen property and possessing a firearm within 10 years of a conviction, according to Superior Court records.

The four defendants who went to trial may now take their cases to the Appellate Court where they will attempt to appeal their convictions.

Webster has already received notice from one of the men, Phillips, requesting an extension of time.

It could be years before any of the cases are sent back to Superior Court, if Appellate Court judges find the cause to do so. So for him, the case remains in the back of his mind.

"I'm just keenly aware that it's not over," Webster said.


Politics of tragedy


Death was no stranger in San Bernardino when Mynisha fell. The city suffered 58 homicides in 2005, and the child could have been but one more name added to the list.

But Mynisha's killing was different. Rather than occassioning mere lip service to the "tough on crime" mantra that looks good on political mailers, the tragedy served as a catalyst for actual debates on what the city leaders needed to do to stem the violence.

"I'm not so sure it had an effect on the politics so much as it had on city officials to sit up and pay attention," said 7th Ward Councilwoman Wendy McCammack.

The violent death of a child was something that could not be ignored in the midst of San Bernardino's mayoral campaign.

The two men competing for the Mayor's Office, Pat Morris and James F. Penman, both seized upon the city's crime problem during the campaign's home stretch.

Penman, the city attorney, argued soon after Mynisha's shooting that the city needed to declare a state of emergency. He spoke in the language of counterforce. Get tough. Get tough now.

He still feels that way.

"We need 100 more police officers than we have," Penman said.

But it was Morris who won. Still a San Bernardino Superior Court judge during the campaign, Morris pitched "Operation Phoenix." The three-pronged proposal had something for everybody, blending suppression (more police), intervention (heightened code enforcement) and prevention (recreation programs for children).

Although Morris and Penman agree that Mynisha's death crystalized San Bernardino's crime problem as the key issue in their 2005 campaign, the men have distinctly differing worldviews.

Both agree that San Bernardino needs robust law enforcement, but Morris sees the city's current crime problems largely as a failure that stems from officials' past unwillingness or inability to reduce factors that contribute to crime.

He sees Phoenix as a policy framework that respects the role of police while also relying upon such work as youth-focused programs to educate children against drugs and gangs.

"We need to continue with that strong effort. They (police) are the first responders. The tragedy is, we've been using suppression literally as our only response over the past several decades," Morris said.

Penman, by contrast, doesn't dismiss the goals of Phoenix, although he has questioned whether crime prevention programs have been effectively managed. He also maintains that the kinds of social programs promoted by Morris can't produce results in the short term and that previous and current city leaders have not done enough to reduce crime by targeting illegal parolee housing or providing even more resources to the Police Department.

Crime "goes up and down and it doesn't go up and down as a function of any programs. It's more a function of whose on the streets," Penman said.

Although Police Department statistics for 2008 show substantial declines in crime, including murders, Penman said many people living in the city do not feel safe.

"The anecdotal evidence is so strong," he said.

Fearful city awakens


Morris took office in March, two days after a riot at the National Orange Show Events Center reinforced the idea that San Bernardino was spinning out of control.

But the city was also anxious for new leadership and 2006 was in many ways, Morris' year.

Operation Phoenix launched to initial acclaim when city leaders established a new youth recreation center and the mayor appeared at a series of block parties in some of San Bernardino's more crime-afflicted neighborhoods.

At the same time, beginning in December 2005, leaders from the community, both elected and some considered influential in their neighborhoods, gathered routinely to work on a grassroots effort that became known as Mynisha's Circle.

The idea was first pitched by The Sun, and many quickly signed on for the evening gatherings at the newspaper's office. Many ideas came out of the sessions, some of which took a strong hold.

In early 2006, Sen. Barbara Boxer, the influential California Democrat, hatched the idea of Mynisha's Law from the roundtable discussions of how to combat crime against San Bernardino children.

Clutching a picture of Mynisha, Boxer introduced the bill in April 2006, which would create a federal task force to work toward reducing gang violence in the most at-risk communities. After some struggles of its own, Boxer got the bill passed by the Senate in the fall of 2007. The House followed suit.

While the city's political agenda seemed to rest in Morris' hands, 2006 was far from an era of good feelings. Critics of the mayor's approach argued that Morris was not tough enough - the block parties were derided as hot dogs and Cokes for criminals.

More serious was the city's growing death toll. The optimism that suffused Morris' first weeks in office was soon countered by the bloody reality that youths were dying in San Bernardino.

There was Anthony Michael Ramirez, shot by a teenager while playing basketball at Martin Luther King Middle School.

Traveil Williams, 16, was slain over a cell phone.

Jarred Mitchell, 14, was practicing dance moves with his friends in the street when a hail of bullets from a passing car took his life.

The crimes added impetus to the drive to stop crime. Morris and the City Council asked residents to contribute to the cause by agreeing to a new tax.

Measure Z added one-fourth cent to the city's sales tax to fund new police officers. Officials promised 40 new cops to the city's voters and the public accepted the deal, passing Measure Z during the November 2006 election.

Voters also passed Measure YY, which seemed to affirm their confidence in the mayor's anti-crime strategy by advising elected officials to use some of the new money for crime prevention programs.

Politics is never that simple though. An advisory measure has all the force of a light breeze and when it came time to divvy up the new tax revenues, the first batch of money was allocated to hire new cops and give current police officers better equipment.


Stumbles follow successes


Youth programs got lost in the shuffle, and the decision to deny Measure Z funds to Phoenix-related endeavors was Morris' biggest political defeat in 2006.

Morris said that this year's double-digit declines in major crimes (including a 46 percent drop in homicides) testify to the success of Phoenix. But when asked if he could have done anything different during his time as mayor, Morris said he would have asked the voters to require city officials to spend Measure Z dollars on crime prevention programs.

"When I wrote Measure Z and it went out for a vote, I didn't expect it would get a 70 percent thumbs up," Morris said.

Morris pledged an expanded Operation Phoenix and the City Council last year gave a fraction of Measure Z revenues to the program, establishing new Phoenix centers on the Westside and in the eastern part of the San Bernardino.

As 2008 took shape, crime appeared to be on a gradual decline, but that bit of good news has been met with the sobering fact that the economy is declining.

City officials spent months debating the budget, coming close to axing the police helicopter patrols that were inaugurated in 2006. Although the council remained committed to using Measure Z funds to hire new police officers, the tax revenues were used to backfill lost monies and preserve support positions within the Police Department, diminishing the tax's capacity to enhance law enforcement.

Making things even more complicated, a recreation official who supervised the flagship Operation Phoenix youth center was arrested in July on suspicion of child molestation.

Mike Miller, a recreation supervisor, was brought on as part of the Phoenix program soon after the initiative was put into action. During Phoenix's first two years, Miller was a popular figure who had a civic reputation that was bolstered by his experience as a youth baseball umpire and Police Department volunteer.

To say his arrest July 3 caught the city by surprise would be an understatement.

Miller's arrest triggered criticism of Phoenix as news reports made it clear that Phoenix had a split chain of command and placed heavy demands on a long cash-starved parks department. The youth centers were not the be-all and end-all of Phoenix, but were the most prominent part of the program.

Phoenix continues, and its proponents say the program's emphasis on collaboration between city, county and nonprofit service providers as vast improvement over the kinds of interactions that occurred before Phoenix's launch.

For the forseeable future, San Bernardino's crime fighting efforts will be hampered by a recession that threatens to starve City Hall of tax revenues. Still, Morris said that he believes reducing crime is what San Bernardino residents demand most from their politicians.

"We've got miles to go on this issue, to quote Robert Frost, `We've got miles to go before we sleep."'


Reality vs. hope


Surely, Mynisha's childhood dream wasn't to sacrifice her life to galvanize a community desperately in need of a face of hope in violent times.

Sometimes though, the facts of despair and loss can drive change.

Today, the case is closed, her killers sit in prison and city officials have made headway in cutting down crime. But Mynisha is dead, and her family mourns the loss.

It was worth far more to them than the $17,313.35 a judge ordered the defendants to pay Mynisha's mother.

The family, who was so frightened by the gang killing that they rarely showed up in court, long ago moved out of the Cedarwood apartment they'd lived in for six days before Mynisha was shot. They remain in hiding.

"I wish you could put things back the way they were," Webster said. "Nothing will bring her back."

Most would agree that much has changed since Mynisha's slaying - some for the better, some for the worse.

"When it happened, it had a great impact because a lot of people rallied to it," Terrence Stone, president of Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy, said referring specifically to Mynisha's Circle.

But Stone also remembers the violence that hit San Bernardino in the months after Mynisha's shooting when other youths were murdered. And now, the immediacy of what happened at a Del Rosa area apartment in November 2005 has faded from the city's consciousness.

"A lot of people just kind of fell off and went to do their own thing," Stone said.

And now, 37 months after Mynisha's death, the city remains forever altered by her tale.

Authorities hope her story will be a deterrent for youngsters toying with the idea of joining a gang.

After all, it is an epitome of hopelessness, the very thing community members and city officials have been fighting against.


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Faces and places of the Mynisha case
The apartment complex

Mynisha Crenshaw's memory was not on the minds of tenants and others interviewed the afternoon of Christmas Eve at the Cedarwood apartments.

Mynisha lived in Apartment 22, a unit that looks out on a vacant lot and a water utility's yard. But three years after her murderers opened fire into the apartment, the crime was less than a distant memory to those who moved in to Cedarwood well after the the girl's death.

"It's cool right here," said Freddy Robles, 24. "There's no significant thing going on here."

Robles said he has lived at the complex for about two months and doesn't worry about his safety. Police are often nearby, but life isn't hectic.

"They're (cops) are always out here, but they just sit out here and wait for something to happen," he said.

On the same afternoon, a young man wearing a bright red T-shirt stood outside the complex in an atmosphere scented by the unmistakable smell of marijuana smoke.

He declined to reveal his name but registered his satisfaction that Mynisha's killers were convicted in a court of law.

"Justice was served," he said before adding, "People get what they deserve."

Another resident, Tonesha Williams, said she has only lived at the Cedarwood Apartments for about nine months. She wasn't familiar with the November 2005 shooting but said she has felt the pain of homicide - her 21-year-old cousin died after being shot eight times in Los Angeles.

"Their mothers are truly hurt from that," she said regarding juvenile victims.

"I hate violence," she added.

The mayor

Mayor Pat Morris was still a candidate and a Superior Court judge when Mynisha Crenshaw was slain.

"That tragedy really did document or highlight the tragedy of juvenile violence in our city," Morris said.

"She was the epitome of innocence," he went on. "She wasn't a gang member. She wasn't involved in any of the gang sets in our city."

The child's death led to Morris and his opponent, City Attorney James F. Penman, to focus on crime during the last months of the 2005-06 mayoral campaign.

Crime remains a central issue in San Bernardino politics.

Voices like Morris' contend that a reinforced Police Department assigned to patrolling streets and solving crimes also needs a robust offering of youth services that can help steer young people away from drugs and gangs before they wind up as a suspect or a victim.

Penman and others reply that although social services may reap long-term benefits, San Bernardino still faces an immediate need to invest more resources into fighting crime.

Policy debates aside, Morris said San Bernardino still has a lot of work to do before the city can escape its reputation as a place of violence.

"We still have a long ways to go before we can brag about the day when we have no children gunned down," the mayor said.

The activists

Terrance Stone, president of Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy, thinks Mynisha Crenshaw's death shocked San Bernardino into taking stock of the city's crime problem.

"When it happened, it had a great impact because a lot of people rallied to it," he said, referring to Mynisha's Circle, a group of community figures that The Sun convened to address gang violence.

Stone said his involvement with Mynisha's Circle led to a Westside community figure, the Rev. Reggie Beamon, who is now chairman of Young Visionaries' board. Beamon and Stone are both ex-gang members involved in anti-violence efforts around San Bernardino.

Beamon said that although San Bernardino's crime statistics show a drop in violence in 2008, he's concerned that a new generation of youths needs to be taught that gang membership is a destructive lifestyle.

"We have to do more because there's a whole new wave of kids," Beamon said.

The prosecutor

Several months had passed in the deadly shooting of 11-year-old Mynisha Crenshaw before prosecutor Ron Webster was assigned to the case.

Previously, Webster was just one of the many other people countywide who heard about the young girl's death.

Days after Mynisha died, residents and community leaders held a vigil and marched in the streets around the apartment complex where the shooting took place, near Mountain Avenue and Citrus Street.

Webster recalled walking with the group, seeing the apartment building where the girl and her family lived.

There was a sense that "this has gone too far. We need to do something to take our neighborhood back," Webster said.

The bullet holes in the stucco had been patched up and painted over.

He remembered standing on the sidewalk, in front of the building, and thinking about what had happened there.

There was no anger or hostility from the other walkers about the shooting. Community members simply wanted a safe environment where they could raise their children, free from the violence and street gangs in the area, the prosecutor recalled.

The investigator

He's a homicide detective turned patrol supervisor, but he couldn't mentally swap duties until he had his own "Dirty Dozen" behind bars.

Police Sgt. Gary Robertson kept peppering members of Pimps, Players, Hustlers and Gangsters with questions about the November 2005 shooting of an 11-year-old girl until he rounded up everyone thought to play a role.

The largest suspect case in the Police Department's history includes the shooter, the lookout and everyone who helped plan the shooting targeted at a rival gang member.

"It didn't 100 percent consume me but it never went away. There was always more digging and researching and people to find," Robertson said. "I had 11 people in custody but I wanted 12 so I could call them a `dirty dozen."'

After more than three years of interviews, Robertson arrested the 12 gang members considered responsible for the death of Mynisha Crenshaw.

He interviewed seven in the circle of suspects before then but couldn't hold them because of a lack of evidence.

That all changed when Robertson took that first phone call from jail. He rode the case out of the homicide division he spent 14 years in and a year into his new patrol assignment.

"There is no doubt in my mind that this was the case of my lifetime," Robertson said.


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Defendants in the Mynisha case
Name: Sidikiba Greenwood
Age: 37
Involvement: Founder of PPHG gang, mastermind behind shooting, distributed weapons.
Status: Serving 95 years to life with two consecutive life sentences in prison.


Name: Sinque Beiama Morrison
Age: 33
Involvement: Planned shooting, distributed weapons, shot at Mynisha's apartment with .45-caliber handgun (five casings found).
Status: Serving 109 years to life in prison.


Name: Patrick Henry Lair
Age: 30
Involvement: Acted as lookout. Testified for prosecution.
Status: Released after spending 1,277 days in jail.


Name: Michael Barnett Jr.
Age: 22
Involvement: Shot at Mynisha's apartment with .22-caliber rifle (one casing found).
Status: Serving 101 years to life in prison.


Name: Harold Lee Phillips
Age: 26
Involvement: Shot at Mynisha's apartment with 7.62 assault-style weapon (one casing found).
Status: Serving 94 years and four months to life in prison.


Name: Shawn Lamont Davis
Age: 21
Involvement: Shot man in apartment complex before Mynisha was killed. Testified for prosecution.
Status: Released after serving 1,277 days in jail.


Name: Tyshon Karrien Harris
Age: 23
Involvement: Shot at Mynisha's apartment with a 9 mm handgun (nine casings found).
Status: Serving 15 years in prison.


Name: Alonzo Jeffrey Monk
Age: 26
Involvement: Went to Mynisha's apartment but left before the shooting. Testified for prosecution.
Status: Released after spending 1,277 days in jail.


Name: Marquis DeShawn Taylor
Age: 20
Involvement: Pointed PPHG members to Mynisha's apartment.
Status: Serving 10 years in prison.


Name: Baybra Edwards
Age: 35
Involvement: May have been present during planning stage of shooting.
Status: Serving three years and four months in prison.


Name: Khaalis Atkins
Age: 31
Involvement: May have been present during planning stage of shooting.
Status: Serving three years in prison.


Name: Royal Small
Age: 30
Involvement: May have been present during planning stage of shooting.
Status: Awaiting sentencing. In Riverside County jail on unrelated charge.


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TIMELINE

Nov. 9, 2005: Barry Jones, 24, is shot and killed during a drug buy near Lynwood Street and Mountain Avenue in San Bernardino. Authorities learn that Jones' death prompts gang retaliation shooting that kills Mynisha Crenshaw.

Nov. 13, 2005: Mynisha is shot and killed at Cedarwood Apartments in San Bernardino. Her older sister is seriously wounded in the shooting.

Nov. 15, 2005: Police announce possible gang involvement in shooting and possible link to deadly shooting of Barry Jones four days before Mynisha shooting.

Nov. 17, 2005: Police confirm gang involvement in Mynisha shooting.

Nov. 19, 2005: First suspect, Shawn Lamont Davis, arrested during a traffic stop in San Bernardino.

Nov. 21, 2005: Second suspect, Patrick Lair, arrested during a traffic stop in San Bernardino.

Nov. 22, 2005: Shawn Davis becomes first suspect charged with Mynisha shooting. Funeral is held for Mynisha at Normandie Seventh-day Adventist Church in Los Angeles. She is later buried at Angeles Abbey Memorial Park in Compton. Prayer vigil for peace held in front of apartment building where Mynisha is shot.

Nov. 23, 2005: Shawn Davis enters not guilty plea at arraignment in San Bernardino Superior Court. Prayer walk held along Mountain Avenue and rest of block where Mynisha was shot. Suspect Harold Phillips arrested at a home in Highland, and police announce search for suspect Sinque Morrison.

Nov. 29, 2005: Police announce arrest of suspects Sidikiba Greenwood and Sinque Morrison.

Nov. 30, 2005: Police announce arrest of suspect Michael Barnett Jr.

Dec. 7, 2005: Police announce plans to pursue gang injunction against PPHG street gang. That same night, the first meeting of the grassroots effort know as Mynisha's Circle is held at The Sun newspaper.

Dec. 8, 2005: First meeting of Mynisha's Circle held.

Dec. 22, 2005: Seventh suspect Tyshon Harris arraigned in Superior Court.

Jan. 14, 2006: About 1,000 people march in a Mynisha's Circle-sponsored rally.

Feb. 7, 2007: Judge Pat Morris defeats City Attorney James F. Penman in a run-off election for mayor.

April 26, 2006: Sen. Barbara Boxer introduces a federal bill called Mynisha's Law, legislation intended to combat gang violence and honor the slain girl. If passed, Mynisha's Law would create a federal task force comprised of the departments of Justice, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

May 15, 2006: Shawn Davis becomes first suspect to go to trial in Superior Court.

May 16, 2006: Shawn Davis accepts plea bargain.

Aug. 18, 2006: Alonzo Monk accepts plea bargain.

Sept. 1, 2006: Patrick Lair accepts plea bargain.

Sept. 6, 2006: Tyshon Harris takes plea bargain.


Sept. 11, 2006: Opening statements made in jury trial for defendants Harold Phillips, Michael Barnett Jr., Sinque Morrison and Sidikiba Greenwood in West Valley Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga.

Sept. 15, 2006: Suspect Baybra Edwards accepts plea bargain.

Oct. 13, 2006: Khaalis Atkins accepts plea bargain.

Nov. 27, 2006: Jury announces it cannot reach verdicts in most of the charges against Phillips, Barnett, Morrison and Greenwood. Judge Shahla Sabet releases jurors.

Nov. 28, 2006: Marquis Taylor accepts plea bargain.

Sept. 22, 2007: Senate approves Mynisha's Law. The House follows soon after.

Apr. 18, 2008: Twelfth suspect Royal Small accepts plea bargain.

May 5, 2008: Opening statements kick off jury trial for Phillips and Greenwood in San Bernardino Superior Court.

June 10, 2008: Jury finds Phillips and Greenwood guilty.

July 11, 2008: Phillips and Greenwood sentenced.

Sept. 29, 2008: Opening statements kick off jury trial for Barnett and Morrison in Victorville Superior Court.

Oct. 28, 2008: Jury finds Barnett and Morrison guilty.

Dec. 10, 2008: Barnett and Morrison sentenced.

Dec. 15, 2008: Davis, Monk and Lair sentenced.



It's a real long article but it's pretty intresting. Crazy how many people were involved n this, u'd think that they would have been smarter then they were. But with so many people tryna be shooters it makes the situation really confusing, so lil mama gets the short end of the sticc. Very sad situation.

My thoughts and prayers go out to this little girls family still grieving, but damn this is a first. How long has this story been in running? What about all the other kids who have been killed in the city? I don't remember there ever being such commotion, the press really blew this one up, not surprisingly around the same time Judge Morris was running for Mayor.

yea the fact that Morris was runnin the same time this happened has made it a highly publicised story. But Morris doesn't give a fucc about what go on in SB this was his lil golden ticcet to success. He took the fact they caught up all those PPHG niggaz up and ran with it and hasn't slowed his pace yet. I've stayed in that part of the E/S for sum time and not once have I seen his scary ass or Mynisha's circle members goind thru them nieghborhoods talkin to youth or anything. The closest thing them kids over there have to guidance is that church Ecclesia right n the middle of Date. Other then that they aint got nobody to look up to but gang members. So for him to preach this old gang prevention shit is useless. They take no initiatives those apartments the Cedarwoods are fuccin disgustin, filled with roaches and rats u'd think he'd do sumthin about that in since he cares so much. I wont go over there without a gun and that's juss real shit im not glorifying that n no way. It's too many niggaz from different hoods over there from IE to LA so it's really not safe 4 nobody. But unlike they say Mynisha was well known just not n that fucced up area and from what UI hear from her family she was a very bright and nice lil girl. And it's sad to see stuff like this happen, but to answer yo question Ryder I think it's because she was a lil girl. That hasn't happened in the Dino for quite sum time, so the press and Mayoe MORRIS saw a oppurtunity and jumped on that shit like a trampalean.

a lil off subject but I was n the Cedarwoods a few months at one of my girls apartments. I was finna hop n the shower and seen the biggest fuccin tarantula n the world cuz lol. I must of hopped out that shit so fast and slipped on the floor and damn near busted my head on the sink lmao. I don't fucc around over there too much now, between the bugs and niggaz i'm straight lol.

dstrm300 wrote:a lil off subject but I was n the Cedarwoods a few months at one of my girls apartments. I was finna hop n the shower and seen the biggest fuccin tarantula n the world cuz lol. I must of hopped out that shit so fast and slipped on the floor and damn near busted my head on the sink lmao. I don't fucc around over there too much now, between the bugs and niggaz i'm straight lol.

LOL....I wouldve died.

dstrm300 wrote:yea the fact that Morris was runnin the same time this happened has made it a highly publicised story. But Morris doesn't give a fucc about what go on in SB this was his lil golden ticcet to success. He took the fact they caught up all those PPHG niggaz up and ran with it and hasn't slowed his pace yet. I've stayed in that part of the E/S for sum time and not once have I seen his scary ass or Mynisha's circle members goind thru them nieghborhoods talkin to youth or anything. The closest thing them kids over there have to guidance is that church Ecclesia right n the middle of Date. Other then that they aint got nobody to look up to but gang members. So for him to preach this old gang prevention shit is useless. They take no initiatives those apartments the Cedarwoods are fuccin disgustin, filled with roaches and rats u'd think he'd do sumthin about that in since he cares so much. I wont go over there without a gun and that's juss real shit im not glorifying that n no way. It's too many niggaz from different hoods over there from IE to LA so it's really not safe 4 nobody. But unlike they say Mynisha was well known just not n that fucced up area and from what UI hear from her family she was a very bright and nice lil girl. And it's sad to see stuff like this happen, but to answer yo question Ryder I think it's because she was a lil girl. That hasn't happened in the Dino for quite sum time, so the press and Mayoe MORRIS saw a oppurtunity and jumped on that shit like a trampalean.

Kids have been victimized by stray bullets in this city for decades now. The fact that she was little girl is irrelevant in their eyes. I take this whole blowing up of the sad situation a perversion of a misfortune. Morris was running at this time and he took this situation as fuel to elevate him into the status he now has, which is on the lines of him being a "peace maker" and "crime stopper". Total bullshit if you ask me.

dstrm300 wrote:a lil off subject but I was n the Cedarwoods a few months at one of my girls apartments. I was finna hop n the shower and seen the biggest fuccin tarantula n the world cuz lol. I must of hopped out that shit so fast and slipped on the floor and damn near busted my head on the sink lmao. I don't fucc around over there too much now, between the bugs and niggaz i'm straight lol.

LOL

For comparisons there was a very similar indecent that occurred in the Crazy Ones hood on Perris st some years back. A little girl had caught a stray bullet in the head, although she lived it was a similar circumstance that led to it and it never had the publicity the Mynisha story had.

yea I remeber countless stories like these. The lil boy Anthony Ramirez was killed not too long after Mynisha and his murder hasn't been hardly as publicised as much as this one. Like said before it's all politics, although he may have his mentions here and there this story has made headlines damn near every month since it happened. And what was sad to me sbout the other story is that I knew John Bagsby the boy who shot him, from West Valley Juve and from Placement. We was roomates n W.V and he was straight, juss a youngster of like 14/15 at the time who was juss dealt a raw deal. He had a baby and 1 on the way already and kid was juss to trigger happy. A lil rough but that's how niggaz grow up on the W/S, and to see him throw his life away 4 sumthin so stupid hurt u kno. But yea I feel u it's wrong how he manipulated the situation, there's a lot more sorrowful mothers out there that deserve recognition too.