Suspect in beating of Bryan Stow was a gang member on parole

[alp227]

CNN reports that 31-year-old Giovanni Ramirez, who was arrested Sunday morning and charged with beating Giants fan Bryan Stow at a Dodgers baseball game, was a member of the Varrio Nuevo Estrada street gang and was on parole. Varrio Nuevo Estrada is "one of 34 gangs in a 15-square-mile area east of downtown Los Angeles, said Jose Carrillo, the lead detective in the case." Also according to Carrillo, "Ramirez was convicted of attempted robbery in 1998, robbery in 1999, and firing a weapon in public in 2005."

Wow. Had this fool served a lengthy prison sentence over the 1999 robbery or 2005 shooting conviction, he wouldn't have been around to beat up Bryan Stow.

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn also had to post $1 million in bail after being arrested for raping a hotel maid in New York City. This gets me thinking: what kind of crimes necessitate that kind of amount? From this one charge of assault with a deadly weapon, the judge set bail at one million dollars.
- Arthur Lee Clark, Jr. has been in jail since December 2009 for vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run charges totaling a milli.
- Since December 2010, Thomas Jewell was held on $5.8 million bail for 49 felony counts of child molestation and child pornography possession. That's about $100k per count - hmm, why would sexual crimes be worth less in bail than violent crimes?

There are still two more suspects on the run in the Stow case.

[dsc]

1. because bail is meant to assure appearence

not necessarily about the crime committed. DSK has such a high bail because he is a huge flight risk with a ton of assets. A poor gang banger with no real assets would need less bail to assure appearance.

[alp227]

2. but it seems that an accused rapist and accused assaulter got equal bail amounts

the accused rapist (Strauss-Kahn) is a wealthy banker, while the accused assaulter (Ramirez) is a poor gang member and convicted felon. In most murder cases I've heard about, judges usually will not allow bail, and the judge hearing the DSK case initially denied any bail at all. And in criminal cases involving death, bail is usually over one million; Johannes Mehserle, the transit police officer convicted of manslaughter, had to post over $3 million.

[pacalo]

3. I sure hope Bryan Stow can eventually get back to his normal life, that

his brain function will be restored. I think about this story a lot, about how one never knows when random violence could happen to those who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or wearing the wrong colors.

I worked with a guy who moved here from California & he told me that, due to so much gang activity there, pedestrians in the malls generally looked down to avoid eye contact with anyone; eye contact could be misinterpreted as aggression.

[dreamnightwind]

5. Where? California's a big place

That might have been true wherever he was from. It certainly isn't true in general in California, so I hate to see our state slimed with such a wide brush. For the most part California is a pretty safe place, and I've lived here over 45 years.

[pacalo]

6. It's been 12 years since I last saw him & I can't remember the city.

It seems like it was San Francisco but I'm not sure.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

7. Thank you.

If you only lived in Oakland, and only watched the local news, then you might think you live in a very dangerous spot.

If that's what California was all about, it wouldn't be the most populous state in the nation.

[dreamnightwind]

9. Yes

California is such a huge place, there's no way to speak generally about it. It really should be like 5 states, then maybe there would be some way to generalize about a particular region of California. Even then, though, huge variance just going from the city to the burbs to the country, different worlds.

Politically, too, it's many different places. Take a 50 mile wide slice along the entire coast, chop off the bottom part (San Diego) and you'd have the most progressive state in the nation. The remainder of the state would be red, with a few minor exceptions. When the coast falls into the sea, this state will vote like Oklahoma.

[Raine]

10. EXACTLY ... I'm in Los Angeles County

and there is nothing to that extreme going on. I've lived here my whole life it certainly is not in the majority of CA. I HATE seeing that kind of a ridiculous statement! :mad:

[pacalo]

12. Don't be so sensitive. I read ridiculous statements about the South here frequently.

California & other states aren't immune to any weaknesses.

I'm careful about the accuracy of the information I post & this was the appropriate time & place to share what I'd been told by a former Californian. Take it personally & dismiss it blindly as a "ridiculous statement", but even the article mentioned a high number of gangs in that area.

[Codeine]

8. There are a few malls like that, but they're very rare.

I'm no tough guy (I look like Moby, but nerdier :D ) and I'm never afraid to make eye contact in our local malls, and this is a pretty blue-collar area with a fairly active gang culture.

[reggie the dog]

11. that was what it was like in chicago when i was a teen in the 90s

[pinboy3niner]

14. I was told the same about eye contact--in Chicago, in 1968

It had little to do with gangs then. Chicago had a lot of ethnic neighborhoods where any outsider was regarded with suspicion and could easily end up in a fight.

[Obamanaut]

15. If everyone is looking down, how will a person know if another is looking

at him/her?

[Duer 157099]

4. Those sound like 3 strikes to me

You'd think a baseball fan would at least know about that.

[Adam Notsmith]

13. Sad case

But ours is a violent society.