Pasadena : Trial Ordered in Shooting

A Pasadena Municipal Court commissioner last week ordered a former president of the NAACP’s Pasadena chapter to stand trial on a charge of assault with a firearm.

Court Commissioner Kevil W. Martin ordered John Jackson Kennedy, 32, a consultant for the city of Pasadena, to stand trial in connection with an Aug. 30 shooting in his car. Kennedy, an NAACP chapter president from 1987 to 1990, has entered a not guilty plea. His attorney previously told The Times that the shooting was an accident.

Martin’s ruling Wednesday followed testimony by Jonathan Thomas, 19, about the shooting in which a .22-caliber bullet passed through his stomach and out his back. Thomas, who described Kennedy as like a father, said Kennedy picked him up at 10 p.m. at a northwest Pasadena housing complex to go get food.

The youth got in Kennedy’s car with a gun. After Kennedy asked if it was loaded, Thomas unloaded the bullets from the gun’s chamber and put them back in the ammunition clip, Thomas said.

Later the two argued about whether to go to Kennedy’s house, Thomas testified. While still driving Kennedy asked for and got the gun from Thomas. The youth first testified that he told Kennedy no bullet was in the chamber; later, under cross-examination, he said the gun was unloaded.

Kennedy, still driving, then pointed the gun at Thomas’ stomach and pulled the trigger, Thomas said. Nothing happened. The young man said Kennedy then pulled back the slide on the gun and fired again, shooting him.

A bullet from an ammunition clip can be loaded into that type of gun by pulling on a slide. Kennedy’s attorney, Michael Shannon, said previously that his client believed the gun was empty, and didn’t realize he was loading the gun.