Hearing Opens for Man Accused of Slashing Girl

A man accused of throwing a glass shard that disfigured 15-year-old Amber Jefferson last August also hit her in the knee with a baseball bat while trying to strike another man, according to court testimony on Monday.

The testimony came in the preliminary hearing for Kurt David Wimberly, 18, who is suspected of injuring Amber during a brawl at an apartment complex in the Stanton area on the night of Aug. 6.

The case has received widespread attention because Amber, her family and civil-rights advocates have contended that she was attacked because of her race. Her mother is white and her father is black. Orange County district attorney officials declined to charge Wimberly under the state’s law against hate attacks, charging him instead with mayhem, a felony that carries a sentence of up to nine years in prison.

The first day’s testimony gave no indication of a racial dispute. Instead, it focused on a dispute that two teen-age girls were having over Wimberly--a quarrel that subsequently erupted into violence.

In West Municipal Court on Monday, Wimberly sat quietly in an orange-colored jail jumpsuit during the hearing before Judge J. Michael Beecher. The hearing, which will continue this morning, is to decide whether Wimberly should be bound over for trial by a jury.

The only witness to testify Monday was Michelle Schimmer, 16, who was with Amber the night she was injured. She testified that she, Amber and some young male acquaintances drove to the apartment complex where Wimberly, who she said was once her boyfriend, lived. She said that she got out of the car at the complex to talk to a young woman whom Wimberly had been seeing.

Schimmer said that as she was talking to the young woman, whom she identified only as “Colleen,” Wimberly came out of his apartment carrying a baseball bat. Schimmer said that Wimberly swung the bat at one of the young men with her, but missed and instead hit Amber on the knee.

Schimmer said that she and other friends helped Amber back to the car. Schimmer said that she and Amber soon left the car, after which she said she saw Amber bleeding from a head wound. Schimmer said she did not see who caused the head injury.

Wimberly’s defense attorney, Sal Ciulla, asked Schimmer about events that led up to the Aug. 6 incident. Schimmer replied that she and Amber had been at a motel earlier that night, looking for a party that did not materialize. They were only there a few minutes, Schimmer testified, and while they were there, she and Amber took a few sips of vodka and orange juice. The young men they were with then drove them to the Stanton-area apartment complex.

There had been a dispute, but no violence, the night before at the same complex, and it also involved Schimmer and “Colleen,” Schimmer testified. She said some young men that previous night had also brandished “either boards or baseball bats.”

Schimmer is to resume her testimony this morning, and Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Harper said she will have Amber take the witness stand this afternoon.

Outside the court room, Amber and a friend, Ralph Jones, 17, of Anaheim, said they were certain the attack on her was racially motivated.

But prosecutor Harper said during a televised interview outside the courtroom that she does not believe that the attack was racially motivated. “It was a huge brawl,” Harper said. “It was something between two groups of people that got out of hand.”