Trial Begins for Two Gang Members in Teacher’s Shooting

The trial of two gang members accused of shooting teacher Alfredo Perez got under way Friday in Compton Superior Court with a witness surprising the prosecutor with testimony that could help one of the defendants.

Antoinette Ramclam, a prosecution witness, testified that on the morning of Feb. 22, when Perez was struck by a stray bullet, she was talking on the phone with Antonio Moses. Moses, 19 is charged along with Frazier Francis, 19, with the attempted first degree murder of Perez.

A skeptical Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Glaviano repeatedly asked Ramclam why she had never mentioned the phone call in interviews with the police. Ramclam gave no direct answer.

Shortly after Ramclam’s declaration, her mother, Toni Ramclam, seated in the courtroom, became hysterical. “They’re gonna kill us. We need an escort,” she said frantically, within apparent earshot of the jury.

After being escorted out of the courtroom, the elder Ramclam said the Denver Lanes Bloods, to which the two defendants belong, had threatened her daughter. “They said they were going to kill her,” she said.

Earlier in court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Glaviano mapped out his case in his opening statement saying the gunfire was meant for a passing car full of rival Hoover Crips.

“This is another case of rounding up the usual suspects,” Francis’ lawyer, public defender Ann Maloney Dawidziak, said in her brief opening statement.