The crime that Shanice Amanda Dyer committed when she was 17 was as horrific as it seemed random.
According to appellate records of the case, she was a documented member of a Crips street gang faction in South L.A., and she was wanted for helping retaliate for murders committed by a rival group in August 2019.
The targets the gang randomly selected were the father-to-be, Alfredo Carrera, and his close friend José Antonio Flores Vasquez, an aspiring astrophysicist in UC Irvine’s doctoral program, who was Carrera’s father-in-law as a gift for a baby boy. Were visiting. A car stopped, with Dyer inside. After a brief argument, authorities said, Dyer and two other defendants opened fire, killing both men. A third man on the road was injured in the back while putting his 1-year-old daughter in a car seat.
Dyer sent a text message claiming responsibility for the shooting and said she was “Satisfied” became the headlines, According to a court that filed the appeal, documentary evidence was collected from her Instagram account.
Dyer was prosecuted as a juvenile under the Los Angeles County District. Atty. George Gascón, who at the time had a strict policy against prosecuting juveniles as adults. He pleaded guilty to murder charges in 2021, and probation records reviewed by The Times show he was released last February. Six months later, he was arrested in connection with another murder in Pomona.
Dyer’s case is one of several in which Gascón showed leniency towards defendants Released only to be charged with another violent crime. Now, as the incumbent district attorney is taking heat for progressive policies from her challenger in the November election, the question of how to handle the most violent juvenile offenders has become a major issue.
Although Gascón’s juvenile policy is in line with a broader movement to keep youth out of adult prisons in California — where only a dozen juveniles were tried in adult court last year — if not for Dyer’s case, he would have been sentenced to life in prison for double murder. Could have faced imprisonment. Stopped before a juvenile court judge.
In the latest case, prosecutors allege that in June he lured 21-year-old Joshua Streeter to a Pomona strip mall, where he was shot and killed. Although not accused of pulling the trigger, Dyer, now 22, has again been charged with murder.
Court records show he has not entered a plea and is scheduled to return to court next month. His lawyer declined to comment.
When Gascón took office in 2020, he banned prosecutors from charging juveniles as adults under any circumstances, citing research on adolescent brain development that shows that people by the age of 25 Are not fully mature.
Gascón lifted his ban halfway through his term and decided to allow prosecutors to seek transfers to adult court in some cases. The move follows widespread reaction to the case of Hannah Tubbs, A 26-year-old man was tried in juvenile court For sexual assault he committed as a teenager.
Charging juveniles as adults requires judicial approval, and the hurdles are high. Two-thirds of attempts to transfer juveniles to adult court failed last year, according to a report published by the California Attorney General’s Office.
But critics of the “godfather of progressive prosecutors” say harsher penalties for violent juvenile offenders should be pursued more aggressively.
Shawn Randolph – the district attorney’s former top juvenile prosecutor, who alleged he faced retaliation after pushing back against Gascón’s policies and won a case against him last year – called the latest alleged murder by Dyer “predictable and preventable.” Worthy” said.
On Gascón’s initial ban on adult charges, Randolph said: “He ordered that juveniles who demonstrated a propensity to commit murder would be released before their brains developed enough to prevent them from killing again. will be left to a vulnerable public.”
Under Gascón’s current policy, L.A. County prosecutors seeking to charge juveniles as adults are required to refer cases to an internal committee; According to the district attorney’s office, 23 such motions have been approved, and only one has been transferred by a judge to adult court.
Tiffany Blacknell, Gascón’s chief spokeswoman, said it was unlikely Dyer’s initial case would meet the standard for transfer to adult court, even if Gascón was allowed to pursue that option in 2021. Blacknell said the teen had no criminal history, and “evidence indicates that” he was asked to commit the crime by a more influential person due to age and position in the gang, which is a factor in determining whether The minor may be transferred to the adult system.
Blacknell said another teenage suspect involved in the murders was also tried as a juvenile and “is now doing well on probation.” According to Blacknell, an adult suspect in those murders is still awaiting trial.
It has become much more difficult to win a motion to transfer a juvenile to adult court in California, partly because of a 2022 Assembly bill that Gascón supported. The law requires prosecutors to prove “by clear and convincing evidence” that a youth cannot be rehabilitated in juvenile detention before a judge approves the transfer.
Some prosecutors argue that the new standards border on the impossible. In 2022, Inglewood judge ruled A teenager accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend and her sister before setting them on fire at the crime scene in Westchester Still not met standard for transfer to adult court.
Former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, who was running to unseat Gascón, said his opponent “could not have handled the Dyer case any worse.”
“First, he implemented a blanket policy refusing to transfer any juvenile to criminal court under any circumstances. She also rejected the recommendation of her superior prosecutors, who warned her that if she was held in juvenile detention and released within a few years, she would kill again, Hochman said in a statement. “I will empower our prosecutors to make the best decisions based on two things: the facts and the law.”
Asked what strategies he would use if elected to address the high burden of state law on transfers, Hochman said he would “never back down from a tough fight”, but did not provide specifics.
The change in state law governing juvenile delinquency has little significance for crime victims who draw a direct line between Gascón’s actions and street violence.
Alfredo Carrera’s sister, Cynthia, said that their family was not informed of Dyer’s release this year.
Cynthia said of Dyer, “He’s a cold-blooded killer who has been freed.” “It’s shocking that she was able to do it again. This is what comes from the soft laws on crime in LA.
