VENTURA : Accused Killer to Stand Trial as Adult
A 19-year-old Ventura gang member accused of shooting a Santa Paula man four times in the back of the head last year was ordered Friday to stand trial as an adult--even though he was a juvenile at the time of the murder.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren set Jerrimi Hampton’s arraignment for Sept. 14.
Hampton is charged with shooting 24-year-old Alfonso (Sammy) Garza Sanchez execution-style in an alley between Vince and Flint streets on Jan. 27, 1993.
Perren cited the nature of the crime, Hampton’s criminal record and previous failed attempts at rehabilitating him as a juvenile as reasons for sending the case to adult court.
Hampton has been convicted in Juvenile Court for an assault that occurred less than a week after the Sanchez shooting, Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger A. Inman said.
The Sanchez murder was part of an unusually violent week in the Ventura Avenue area. Two days after Sanchez was killed, 17-year-old Ventura High School football player Jesse Strobel was stabbed to death in an unrelated incident in the same area, police said. And two other serious stabbings also occurred there the day before the Strobel murder.
The rash of casualties prompted a town-hall meeting in which nearly 700 Ventura residents gathered to show an unprecedented display of concern about gang violence and devise a strategy to put a halt to the bloodshed.
No one has been charged with stabbing Strobel, but Ventura police arrested Hampton two months ago and charged him with taking Sanchez’s life.
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