After Contrell Townsend was fatally stabbed at Montbello High School, “everyone” at the school believed it was a gang- related killing involving the rival Bloods and Crips gangs, a Denver jury was told Thursday.
Brittany Dubose, 19, a Montbello student at the time of the Jan. 4, 2005, incident, testified that was the common theme among students, many of whom witnessed the fatal stabbing in the high school cafeteria.
Dubose had known Townsend, 17, since the eighth grade. Marcus Richardson, accused of killing Townsend, was in her world history class, she said.
Dubose, testifying on the second day of Richardson’s second- degree murder trial, described Richardson as “very shy and quiet.”
During the trial, several witnesses have said that on the day of the stabbing, Townsend was wearing red, the color of the Bloods, and Richardson was wearing blue, the color of the Crips.
Dubose, however, said she was not aware that either student was affiliated with a gang.
But defense attorneys Craig Truman and Walter Gerash claim Richardson acted in self-defense when he was attacked by Townsend, who they said had Blood affiliations.
During the fight, the defense claims, students associated with the Bloods refused to let others stop the fight and also yelled “s-wooop,” “s-wooop,” the Bloods’ “war cry.”
At the time of the incident, Townsend was with members or former members of the Montbello High School football team. One of those people, Sedgrick Myles, who played football at Montbello for two years, testified earlier that many of the football players were “associated” with the Bloods.
And Thursday, Denver police officer Carisa Rice, one of two resources officers at Montbello, acknowledged that “there is a problem” with gangs at the school and that some students are gang members.
But she said that the resource officers have “zero tolerance” for any student “advertising” his gang affiliation by flashing gang signs and wearing gang colors.
Rice was asked by the jury, which is permitted to make inquiries, whether she could verify Myles’ statement that many members of the 2004-05 football team were Blood associates.
She said she didn’t believe that to be true.
“I don’t think it is a fact the football team is affiliated with a gang,” Rice said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
