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 today.
Brittany Dubose, 19, a Montbello student at the time of the Jan. 4, 2005 incident, testified that was the common theme among dozens of students who witnessed the fatal stabbing in the high school cafeteria.
She told Denver District Court jurors that she had known Townsend, 17, since the 8th grade. She said Marcus Richardson, then 16, the student accused of killing Townsend, was in her world history class.
Dubose, who testified during the second day of Richardson’s second-degree murder trial, described the slightly-built Richardson as “very shy and quiet.”
Numerous 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 have said that Richardson acted in self-defense when he was attacked by Townsend, who they claim had affiliations with the Bloods gang.
They also claim that other students associated with the Bloods refused to let other students stop the fight. The claimed the gang associates also yelled out “sw-o-o-o-p” “sw-o-o-o-p,” which they identified as the Bloods’ “war cry”, as Townsend and Richardson fought.
At the time of the incident, Townsend was with a couple of members or former members of the Montbello high School football team. On Wednesday, Sedgrick Myles, who played football at Montbello for two years, testified that many of the football players were “associated” with the Bloods.
Denver police officer Carisa Rice, one of two high school resources officers at Montbello, told jurors today that police know “there is a problem” with gangs at the school and that some students are gang members.
But she said that the resource officers have a “zero tolerance” for any student showing his gang affiliation by flashing gang signs, wearing gang colors or in any way “advertising” his affiliation.
Rice was asked by the jury, which is permitted to ask questions, whether she could verify Myles’ statement that many members of the football team in 2005 were Blood associates.
She said she had seen no evidence of that.
“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.
