|
|
| The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Weekly Newspaper |
«
Go back |
| Four Bolinas youths face years in Jail |
Clark Merrefield
2008-07-03 |
|
More than a week after Bolinas resident Ricky Green was brutally attacked near Bolinas Beach, four young men are in police custody, one of whom, Lamont Elkins Jr., was arrested yesterday afternoon at 49 Buckelew Street in Marin City.
Three of the suspects, Thoren Manetta, 21, Ryan Lorne, 23, and Stefan Do, 16, who is being charged as an adult, pled this morning at Marin County Superior Court to charges of attempted murder. Elkins was also charged with attempted murder and is being held on $1 million bail.
The suspects face nine years in prison. Do and Elkins were charged with using a weapon, Manetta's attorney Robert Casper said. The weapons charge carries a potential extra year in prison.
Elkins, 19, of San Rafael, was charged last February with attempted second degree robbery; attempted grand theft from a person; battery; resisting arrest; and exhibiting a deadly weapon, a rock, at an unspecified location in Marin County. He pled guilty to battery and resisting arrest, and he is still on probation.
One month after the February incident, Elkins, who went to Tamalpais High School, was charged with possessing 28.5 grams of marijuana on an overcast Saturday morning in Mill Valley. That charge was dropped by a motion of the district attorney in June 2007.
In December of 2006, Elkins was charged with vandalizing a 2004 Honda Civic, causing $400 in damage. During the incident, Elkins was involved in an altercation in which he spit in the car owner's hat and on the car itself before kicking the car and causing the damage, according to court records. In the records, Elkins admitted to kicking the car and taking the hat off the car owner's head.
Attempts to reach people close to Elkins were unsuccessful.
Manetta, of San Rafael, has also had legal trouble in the past two years. Last February he was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol; reckless driving; and hit and run resulting in injury near the intersection of Miller Avenue and Camino Alto in Mill Valley. Several days after the incident he told a probation officer he was not driving the vehicle, but would not reveal the driver's identity. He received three years probation.
Manetta's mother did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Lorne, of Bolinas, was charged last October with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a suspended license. He pled guilty to those charges and in May of this year he was again charged with driving with a suspended license.
Do, a 16-year-old from Bolinas who recently finished his junior year at Tamalpais High School, has no prior record as an adult and is being held in juvenile custody.
The June 23 attack on Green was witnessed by as many as ten people, Detective Garrett said during a town hall meeting this week.
"We're seeking cooperation from you as a community to wrap this up," Lieutenant Don Wick said during Monday's meeting. "Now that a couple of arrests have been made people are starting to shut us down."
Someone staying in a car near the beach on the night of the attack told the Point Reyes Light that a group of 15 to 30 people flocked from outside Smiley's Saloon toward the beach moments after deputies finished their evening rounds. Some were driving new, expensive-looking pickup trucks, the person said.
The gang mentality that emerged during the attack has shocked and saddened most residents. It is seen by some as a perversion of the Bolinas Border Patrol, which was founded in 1975 by four Bolinas teenagers and is known for removing highway signs to Bolinas and literally driving people out of town.
"I was thinking back to my own teenage years and what I remember is that there were some people – we called them vagrants – and there were times when we would challenge them," said Border Patrol co-founder Alex Horvath. "In a one-on-one situation you don't take that very far, you usually back off. There was very little violence when I was growing up."
Times have apparently changed. The question now on everyone's lips is: why? Why did this happen in a town known for embracing its eccentrics, artists, aging hippies and the occasional waft of marijuana smoke?
Even those close to the suspects are unsure. At Monday's meeting, several teenagers who went to school with the suspects were as awed by the attack as many of the adults. Race has been mentioned by residents as a possible motive – Green is black and a separate alleged attack against a black man occurred on June 22 in downtown Bolinas. Elkins, one of the suspects in the attack on Green, is also black.
"They had something against him," said Jeff Castro, 19, who knows all of the suspects. "It wasn't race, it wasn't a hate crime. It was an outspoken outsider who had a lot to say and who they saw as not a part of them."
"Such good families, such good parents around them for the most part," Castro told the Light.
A woman named Sanger, who does not use a surname and says she is close friends with Green, said his condition is improving and that he left Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital yesterday and is staying with friends.
"Ricky is not someone who harbors ill will," she said. "He is a very loving human being and a great creative spirit and he wishes only the best for these kids. He hopes that they grow through it and heal themselves."
|
|
| |
|
