Preliminary hearings are underway in the trial for the three men arrested in the fatal freeway shooting of two-year-old Jasper Wu, KTUV reports.
Wu was killed while riding in the car with his family on Interstate 880 near Oakland, California, in November 2021. He was struck by a stray bullet in gunfire exchanged between two other vehicles on the freeway.
According to SFist, authorities arrested three suspects, believed to be gang members, in December 2022: Trevor Green, 22, Ivory Bivens, 24 and Johnny Jackson, 28. The fourth suspect had been shot and killed in an unrelated drive-by shooting a month prior to the arrests.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has charged the three suspects with shooting at an occupied vehicle, and possession of a firearm by a felon, ABC 7 reports.
Annie Beles, the attorney representing Jackson, said outside the courthouse on Monday that her client is innocent. She stated that the other men fired at him first.
“The death of a child is a tragedy, but Johnny Jackson did nothing to cause the death of this child,” Beles said, according to KTUV. “He was the victim of an unprovoked attack by an AK-47 on the freeway.”
Ernie Castillo, an attorney representing Bivins, also said they intend to examine the gang enhancements that were added by the DA’s office.
“We certainly intend to establish his lack of involvement in this case,” he said, according to KTUV. “We also intend to flesh out the racist and class-biased tendencies on the gang enhancements in this case.”
“We also intend to flesh out the racist and class-biased tendencies of gang enhancement,” Bivin’s attorney.
On Monday, the court heard testimony from CHP officers who responded to the shooting. The hearings are expected to last through the week.
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