DUBLIN — An Oakland man has been convicted of second-degree murder within the 2022 shooting of a person who had just been beaten by the defendant's father and was fleeing the San Leandro bar where the fight took place.

Louis Ray Woods III, 35, was convicted March 25, 2022, of murder and a weapons enhancement for killing Brian Antonio Marquis Moore with an unregistered AR-15 rifle. During the trial, Woods' attorney argued that it was a case of self-defense based on Woods' perception that Moore had a gun. Prosecutors called it premeditated murder and argued that Woods shot Moore as he tried to flee to safety.

Woods faces 15 years to life in prison on the second-degree murder charge alone.

The jury began deliberations on Thursday, November twenty first. They were presented with a variety of charges for consideration, including first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, in addition to second-degree murder, which they agreed to.

Moore was killed outside Cunha's Cocktail Lounge in San Leandro, minutes after Woods' father knocked him out during a temporary fight on the bar. A bouncer testified that he regretted letting Moore – who was reportedly drunk and undressed – back into the bar because it ultimately led to his death.

Prosecutors used Moore's erratic behavior to their advantage, arguing that the incontrovertible fact that he took off his clothes proved he was unarmed and that Woods was lying when he claimed Moore had a gun. The defense argued that Moore took or was given a gun after the fight with Woods' father and that Woods believed his father can be “executed” for beating Moore.

According to prosecutors, after the murder, Woods fled to a close-by Motel 6 and tried to avoid contact with police. When police caught up with him, he repeatedly lied and denied being on the bar that night. It wasn't until the trial that he modified his story, took the witness stand and claimed that somebody outside the bar was yelling that one other man “had a gun.”

Woods claimed he fired warning shots and had no intention of hitting Moore. The prosecution explained that this was just one other lie, declaring that Moore had been hit multiple times and arguing that he fled along with his back to his back when the bullets hit him.

Outgoing District Attorney Pamela Price – who was recently removed – issued an announcement on the decision Tuesday, praising the jury's verdict and saying that Wood's decision to bring a gun to the bar ultimately led to the tragedy.

Originally published: November 26, 2024 at 9:09 pm PST

'Balance of power'

Christian condolences

REPRESA – Five men – including an Oakland man already involved in three other murders – are suspected of killing a fellow inmate at California State Prison in Sacramento on Friday, authorities said.

The victim of the day room attack was Darryl Hudson, a 40-year-old Pittsburgh native serving a life sentence for murdering a PC World magazine editor during a robbery. State prison officials say Hudson was attacked by five men, lost consciousness in the course of the attack and later succumbed to his injuries. They haven’t said whether a weapon was used or if the motive has been revealed.

The attackers were identified in a press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as Darryn Mayberry (30), Robert Keller (38), Tray Watson (58), Marcell Battiest (29) and Otis Wyatt (27). They were placed in solitary confinement, authorities said.

Wyatt was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison earlier this yr after being convicted of the premeditated murder of Darrell Daniel in 2016. He also pleaded guilty to a single count of manslaughter in reference to a 2016 Oakland celebration shooting that killed 20-year-old Craig Fletcher-Cooks and 22-year-old Terrence McCrary, a 21-year sentence that drew criticism from families of each victims.

Battiest and Keller were serving prison sentences for murder in Sonoma and Los Angeles counties, and Watson was serving an 18-year sentence for robbery, authorities said.

Hudson was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2009 for the murder of Rex Farrance, 59. Farrance was a PC World editor who had been targeted for his home marijuana cultivation, authorities said on the time. On Jan. 9, 2007, 4 men broke into his home. Police believed Hudson personally killed Farrance, but he denied this at his sentencing.

“Frankly, they got the wrong person,” Hudson said at the top of the hearing.

You and I even have been in a life-and-death struggle for six years, but we’ve got never spoken to one another.

It's time we talked.

To some people, it could seem crazy to speak on to cancer cells. But studies on the placebo effect and its evil twin, the nocebo effect, show that our thoughts and beliefs can heal or harm our bodies. The mind-body connections usually are not yet well understood, but I hope you and I can discover a option to have an open conversation.

First, let me admit that it's hard to not hate you. You turned my golden years the other way up. My relaxed journey to retirement became a harrowing, pain-filled journey.

When the small lump on my neck was diagnosed as metastatic cancer for which there isn’t a cure, fear shot through me like a killer. I step by step realized that fear and terror could break, or even perhaps shorten, the time I had left. This encouraged me to return to terms with the thought of ​​dying while doing every part I could to remain alive.

Because you’re an especially rare type of apocrine cancer, I even have no data on my life expectancy. However, by the point you were discovered, you had already spread to greater than three dozen lymph nodes in my neck – not a great sign. Now you could have grown into increasingly large, bruised patches on my face, neck and chest, reminding me of my mortality each time I look within the mirror.

My talented care team at Stanford University Medical Center, led by Dr. Alexander Dimitrios Colevas and Dr. Anne Lynn Su Chang, dug deep into their bag of tricks in the hunt for a cure. I underwent surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, and photodynamic therapy. Each of those treatments had terrible unwanted side effects, none of which had lasting effects. Several set me back. I even have at all times moved forward.

Along with my fear and hatred for you, I also developed a grudging respect. You are tough and resilient, qualities I sought in myself to survive you.

Motifs of mutated cells

You always demand my attention, but refuse to present up your secrets. Why did you mutate? Could I even have prevented this? And more importantly, what can I do now to stop you?

I don't even know what to make of you. People speak about “fighting” you as in case you were an invading alien force. You usually are not. You are a mutation of my very own cells. How can I fight except by applying available medical treatments? I can't kick, punch, stab or shoot you and see no profit in simply assuming a belligerent stance.

You're acting like you need to kill me. But can mutated cells have intentions? Does every cell have intentions? The three trillion cells in my body are connected to one another through complex biochemical and electrical interactions. Are in addition they connected by some form of consciousness?

The conscious mind is usually in comparison with a CEO who shouts orders to his brain, which the body then carries out. But nerve impulses cannot travel fast enough to permit the brain to regulate the fingers of a concert violinist. To determine which notes to play, she must depend on the conscious mind she has developed in her hands through training and practice.

Your cancer cells also behave as in the event that they have some form of consciousness or intelligence. They recruit healthy cells to form blood vessels that feed your tumors. They mask themselves to cover from the immune system's killer T cells.

What form of communication takes place at your level? Is it a language I can ever learn? I hope so, because there’s something I actually need to let you know.

It says: Please stop dividing and die.

Request a deal

That's a giant ask, but hear me out. Healthy cells divide a set variety of times after which die. Your refusal to follow nature's plan and reproduce recklessly is a misguided pursuit of immortality, because in case you kill me, you’ll die too.

Yes, by continuing to share, you may extend your life just a little. But if you could have a consciousness, it is best to take into consideration sacrificing yourself for the common good. After all, I represent my whole self, while you’re only an element of it.

I don't intend to make you are feeling guilty. I doubt that you could have any hostile intentions. You are the offspring of a healthy cell that lived a standard life until something happened and adjusted it. Now, like all living things, you need to proceed living, even when circumstances beyond your control have brought your well-being into conflict with mine. And who knows, possibly I’m accountable for those circumstances.

My doctors don't know what caused you to mutate, but I exposed myself to quite a few cancer risk aspects. I smoked cigarettes for years and still drink alcohol. I ate loads of pork and worked in stressful each day journalism for a long time. Maybe I made you what you’re.

There is little question that I – or more accurately, my immune system – didn’t rid myself of you before you may do damage. My cancer risk aspects include the best of all – old age. I’m 75, an age in life when biological systems are inclined to weaken. If my T cells were still at their best, you and I probably wouldn't be having this conversation.

And yet here I stand on the gates of eternity, begging for a deal.

You and I won’t ever be friends, but possibly we will coexist.

What do you’re thinking that?

Hello. Can you hear me?

Originally published: August 24, 2024 at 5:30 am

OAKLAND – An El Cerrito man who has three previous drunken driving convictions was sentenced to 6 years in prison in 2022 for killing his friend while inebriated, court records show.

Nipun Ajmani, 44, pleaded no contest to alleged assault by drunken driving in reference to the March 12, 2022, crash on the MacArthur Maze that killed 36-year-old Zeeshan Khan, a passenger in Ajmani's automobile. He was formally sentenced in June but stays in Santa Rita Jail for now.

The story behind Ajmani's arrest began an hour before the crash, when he and Zhan were stopped by police in a vehicle driven by a 3rd party around 1:15 a.m. Officers concluded Ajmani was too drunk to drive and drove him and Zhan to the 1000 block of University Avenue in Berkeley, where Ajmani owned a cellular phone store, court records show.

Police estimated that Ajmani wouldn’t be sober until around 11 a.m. and told him so, based on court records. Instead of following officers' advice, Ajmani got behind the wheel of one other vehicle and picked up Zhan once they collided with a automobile from behind on the maze at around 2:20 a.m., authorities said.

“(Ajmani) is absolutely devastated by (Zhan's) death,” Morris wrote. “He regrets his actions and wishes nothing but healing and recovery for Mr. Khan's family.”

Ajmani was arrested after the accident and has been in prison ever since. He took classes to treat his alcoholism while in prison and is being sued by Zhan's next of kin, court records show.

According to court records, Ajmani has been convicted of drunk driving 3 times, all between 2003 and 2010.

OAKLAND – An area resident has been found guilty of first-degree murder and use of a firearm in reference to the 2020 shooting death of his former neighbor, a killing that exposed institutional failings and earned the victim's widow a multimillion-dollar settlement.

Jamal Thomas, 47, was convicted Tuesday of murdering 44-year-old Miles Armstead. The jury deliberated for a day before reaching the decision.

Armstead, an Oakland resident who left behind a pregnant wife, was shot and killed on May 1, 2020, while renovating his home in anticipation of his move. It was Thomas' harassment that prompted the couple to maneuver. Thomas has been arrested on nearly two dozen counts of harassing and threatening the couple or vandalizing their home. Among other things, he threw a brick through a window, nearly hitting Armstead's wife, court records show.

After being arrested for threatening the Armsteads, Thomas openly stated his intention to murder Armstead during an interrogation by police.

“Guess what, guys? I'll be right back,” Thomas told Oakland cops, in keeping with court documents. “And next time I'm going to kill him.”

Thomas was identified because the shooter by several neighbors. He had previously lived round the corner to Armstead but had moved out months earlier and continued to occupy the home. Others on the block were aware of his appearance, but Thomas's attorney wrote in court papers that a few of the witnesses identified the shooter as a person with long dreadlocks and that Thomas' hair was short when he was arrested.

The well-documented lead-up to the murder resulted in a lawsuit by Armstead's widow and a $2.4 million settlement paid by Alameda County and town of Oakland. The lawsuit alleged that the county's probation department and Oakland police missed warning signs and failed to answer a situation that was escalating toward violence.

Thomas is attributable to be sentenced in mid-August. He faces 25 years to life imprisonment for murder alone.

OAKLAND — A Pleasanton man was sentenced Tuesday to a minimum of 15 years in prison — and possibly the remaining of his life — for a murder that an Alameda County judge called “one of the most heinous crimes I have ever seen.”

“The inhumanity of your actions is beyond my comprehension,” Judge Scott Patton said, addressing 43-year-old Joseph Roberts directly. “There are people who should not be allowed to walk freely in our society, and you are one of those people.”

Roberts stared ahead in silence as Patton announced his verdict for the beheading of Rachel “Imani” Buckner, 27, whose mutilated body was present in a garbage bag near the Bay Farm Island Bridge in Alameda in July 2023. A jury later Roberts found guilty of premeditated murder After authorities say he killed Buckner in her Pleasanton apartment and severed her head, hands and feet with power tools – none of which were ever found.

Friends and relatives described Roberts in court Tuesday as a manipulative man vulnerable to extreme outbursts of violence. They claimed he once punched and kicked Buckner's grandmother so hard that she broke an arm and suffered a brain injury. They then claimed he took out his anger on his fiancée and systematically isolated her from her family.

Several of Buckner's relatives and shut friends expressed fear and anxiety at the concept of ​​Roberts ever being released from prison, calling him a “dangerous” man who had imposed “a reign of terror” on Buckner and people round her.

“This has been an absolute nightmare for me and my family,” Buckner's grandmother, Miriam Benford, said in an announcement read by one other relative. “None of us are safe when he is on the streets. He has desecrated our lives. He should never be free.”

Buckner's mother, S. Jamila Buckner, lamented that Rachel's preschool-age daughter still screams, “I want to go to my mommy, I want to go to my mommy.”

“She's only four years old and she's had to try to understand the complexity of her mother's death,” said S. Jamila Buckner. She recounted how the girl kept considering out loud about how her mother died and kept asking herself, “Did her heart stop beating?”

Roberts didn’t speak in the course of the sentencing. His attorney, Annie Beles, said the court had no discretion in determining the length of Roberts' prison sentence and expressed “hope for peace” for all involved, including the couple's families.

Roberts and Rachel Buckner met while studying law at Golden Gate University. During their relationship, Roberts wrote an editorial for USA Today denouncing the #MeToo movement, claiming he was falsely accused of sexual harassment while in college. Betsy DeVos, the previous U.S. Secretary of Education under President Trump, cited Roberts for example when she advocated for the rollback of Obama-era protections for alleged victims of campus sexual assault.

At the identical time, prosecutors suspect Roberts of brutally beating and abusing Rachel Buckner.

In the lead-up to the murder, Pleasanton law enforcement officials fielded about 17 reports of loud screams, thumps and punches coming from the couple's apartment. But those calls yielded little results, as Pleasanton police normally left the couple's home after only just a few punches, prosecutors say. In other cases, Buckner insisted she was high quality and told officers to depart.

According to authorities, Roberts killed Buckner in her Pleasanton apartment in mid-July 2023. Prosecutors said Roberts then went on a Tinder dating spree and went on along with his life as if nothing had happened.

Investigators later discovered a bone fragment with Rachel Buckner's DNA within the couple's bathtub drain, next to large bottles of cleansing chemicals. The body itself showed partial cuts from “false starts” where Robert's saw got caught on a bone, in response to court testimony.

On Tuesday, Rachel Buckner's family and friends focused on the life that was ending – that of a loving mother who seemed destined for a promising profession as a lawyer. All of this might have happened, they are saying, if she had never met Roberts all those years ago in law school.

“He took my firstborn child away from me,” said S. Jamila Buckner. “I felt like everything inside me had been ripped out of my soul.”