Prosecutors Say Man Won’t Face Homicide Charges in Stabbing

Ventura County prosecutors said Wednesday that they have insufficient evidence to file homicide charges against a man who fatally stabbed a 14-year-old Ventura youth in Grant Park last week.

Kevin J. McGee, assistant chief deputy district attorney, said the stabbing of Ricardo Hernandez apparently occurred after Hernandez and four of his friends accosted four other men, including suspect Eric Jones, on a park road.

“Somebody from Ricardo’s group struck somebody in Eric’s group,” McGee said. Jones then stabbed Hernandez and a 16-year-old boy, both of whom fled with the other youths, investigators said. Hernandez, whose aorta was punctured, died at a hospital a short time later.

Jason Shipley, Jones’ friend who was attacked, said Wednesday that Ricardo’s group assaulted him with what he thinks was a chain, which left a severe cut under his eye. Some in the group carried rocks, he said.

McGee declined to comment on whether Ricardo’s group was armed, but said: “There could be reasonable self-defense here.”

Ventura police are still investigating the slaying, McGee said. “They may come up with additional things that may change our mind.”

Both McGee and Ventura Police Lt. Brad Talbot hinted that one or more of Ricardo’s associates could be charged in his death, on the theory that the assault on Shipley led to Ricardo’s stabbing.

“There’s always that possibility,” Talbot said. “There is precedent for that. . . . We have a youth gang involved that aggressively confronted another group. Words were exchanged and somebody died. That’s not right. . . . Now we are trying to determine with the D.A.’s office who may be able to be prosecuted for that.”

McGee said: “My feeling is, there are lots of different ways this case could go.”

Whether Ricardo was a gang member has not been established, but several of the youths accompanying him were members of a gang known as the Ventura Avenue Gangsters, Talbot said.

Shipley said he and Jones belong to a Ventura gang known as the Mid-Town Satanic Criminals. But he said he does not believe that their membership in that gang had anything to do with the confrontation, and Talbot agreed.

Meanwhile, Jones, 19, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days in Ventura County Jail for carrying a knife in violation of his probation. He was placed on probation last year after pleading guilty to vandalism of a picnic table at another park.

Gerardo Hernandez, the victim’s 16-year-old brother, expressed anger at the possibility that Jones will not face homicide charges. “It’s wrong,” Hernandez said. “He committed a crime, and he should pay for it. The whole family is upset.”

Shipley, 19, of Oxnard, said he believes that the stabbing was justified. “It was self-defense from what I know,” he said.

Shipley said he, Jones and two other friends had gone to the park about 8 p.m. to talk on their CB radios. The park, on a promontory overlooking Ventura, is an excellent place to reach CB radio buffs from Port Hueneme to Ojai, he said.

“This little mini-truck drove by and the people inside started yelling crap,” Shipley said.

He said the comments did not appear to be gang slogans. “I yelled back ‘gringo,’ which means ‘white boy,’ ” Shipley said. “That’s the only comment I made that whole night.” He said he and Jones were not dressed in a way that would identify them as gang members.

The youths in the truck again drove by and yelled at them, Shipley said. Then, they apparently parked in the lot at the park’s summit and walked down to where Shipley, Jones and their friends were parked, below the giant cross that looms over the park.

“One of them asked which one had yelled at them,” Shipley said. “I stepped up and said, ‘You got a problem with that?’ ”

Without answering, Shipley said, one of the youths “hit me with something. My friends said he hit me with a chain. It cut my face open below the eye pretty bad. I had a mark on the back from a chain.”

Shipley said he stumbled backward and covered his face. He said his vision was blurred, and he did not see the stabbing, but he believes that Jones was also attacked. “I heard a chain hit the truck, after I was hit,” he said. He said he also heard one of the youths say he had a .38-caliber handgun.

By the time he could see clearly, Shipley said, the youths were heading back up the hill.

Shipley said he and his friends left in their pickup, with him and Jones riding in the back. “He told me, ‘I think I got one,’ ” Shipley said, but he understood the comment to mean that Jones had cut one of the attackers, not killed him.

“We didn’t know anybody was killed,” Shipley said. “Everybody was standing when we left. All the guys that had come up to us left.”

But the next day, Shipley said, the owner of the truck in which he and Jones had been riding called to say that someone had died and that police were looking for him and Jones. Shipley said he directed police to Jones’ house because “I figured it was self-defense.”

Shipley said Jones had purchased the knife, which he said had an eight-inch-long blade, about three weeks before the stabbing. “He was thrilled with it. He carried it every day,” Shipley said. “We both carry knives around, just in case somebody pulls a knife on us. . . . It’s a handy thing.”

As to whether Jones was justified in stabbing the youths, Shipley said: “I don’t think Eric responded too strongly. That chain is a better weapon than a knife, if you think about it. You can knock a knife out of somebody’s hand with the chain. You can attack from a longer distance.”

Shipley, who said he doesn’t like people from the Ventura Avenue area, expressed little regret over the 14-year-old’s death.

“It shocked me . . . but it didn’t matter that he died because of the way he came up to us, and because he’s from the Avenue,” Shipley said. “I guess that sounds a little strong.”

Times staff writer Santiago O’Donnell contributed to this story.