Charges Never Filed for Female Teen in Altadena Shooting

A 19-year-old Monrovia girl who was arrested for a was never charged with the shooting, according to police and district attorney sources.

Jaszmine Jenkins, 19, was arrested in April for the shooting of a man police described as a rival gang member, but according to Shelley Dominguez, the prosecutor trying the case, she never received a request to file charges against Jenkins.

"Nobody ever presented a case against a female suspect" Dominguez said.

Dominguez added she is pretty sure Jenkins was a witness in the case, and said it is not uncommon for police to make arrests when they have insufficient proof to file a case.  It's possible, she said, that police used the arrest to help get information out of Jenkins as a witness.

Charges were filed in the shooting against Hildon Jones, 34, of Altadena in the case.  The same that resulted in the arrests of Jones and Jenkins also netted six other arrests.

One of those suspects, 33-year-old Altadena resident Steven Wright, was charged with the January 19 murder of Donnell Taylor in Pasadena.  A second suspect, 38-year-old Vernon Fisher, of Altadena, was later arrested and also charged with that murder.

Lt. Phlunte Riddle of the Pasadena Police Department previously described both suspects as members of the Altadena Block Crips street gang in an , and said that Taylor was a member of the rival Pasadena Denver Lane gang.  She said the shooting was likely because of bad blood between Wright and Taylor.

While the April 7 operation did ultimately results in those arrests, there were other suspects who either were not entered into the L.A. County inmate system, got off with misdemeanor charge, or simply had their charges dropped.  Below is a summary of those suspects:

• Shannel Walton: Walton was found at the South Los Angeles home of a parolee Robert Rucker and was arrested on suspicion with child endangerment.  The district attorney's office did not file charges in the case, according to Lt. Joe Dempsey of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Altadena Station.  Walton subsequently has been featured in several columns by Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks, who wrote that Walton lost her five children to the county foster care during the raid and has so far been unable to recover them.  Dempsey noted that if a case is filed with the county child protective services as it appears to have been for Walton, the Sheriff's Department does not have any authority in that case.
• Robert Rucker, 41, Los Angeles, was released from county jail and charged with a misdemeanor after originally being arrested on felony charges.
• Eric Hartfield, 41, Altadena, was arrested on felony charges and released without charge
• Jesse Johnson, 35, of Altadena was arrested on felony charges and released.  He now faces misdemeanor charges.
• Bengarmain Gay, 26, of Altadena, does not show up as having entered the county jail system, after being arrested on an existing warrant.  Lt. Tracy Ibarra of the Pasadena Police Department said it is likely he has been processed in another jurisdiction where the warrant was issued from, but had no further information.