OAKLAND — An Alameda County decide has dismissed a homicide case in opposition to man charged in reference to a 2021 shootout that killed an harmless bystander, court docket data present.
Billy Deon Williams, 23, had been charged with murdering John Avalos in a January 2021 gun battle that concerned 14 shooters and tons of of rounds of ammunition. Williams had been ordered to face trial after a preliminary listening to.
Final month, Williams was free of jail after Choose Thomas Reardon dismissed the case, ruling in favor of a protection movement that argued the proof in opposition to Williams was too flimsy to justify the costs. The protection argued prosecutors had nothing greater than rumour statements from an unreliable gang affiliate who lied to police, grainy surveillance footage exhibiting Williams within the space of the taking pictures two hours earlier than, and the truth that he confirmed as much as the hospital with a gunshot wound later that day.
“Mr. Williams was a sufferer of this taking pictures, however OPD handled him as a suspect based mostly on rumors and proximity,” Williams’ lawyer, Daniel Shriro, mentioned in an announcement to this newspaper. “The decide accurately discovered that he mustn't have been charged with homicide simply because he knew the flawed individuals and was close by.”
Williams was arrested in Fresno final March and spent the subsequent seven months in jail, till the case was dropped. Three months after his arrest, prosecutors charged a second man, Deyonne White, with additionally murdering Avalos and making an attempt to homicide 4 others, together with Ramon Worth Jr., an Oakland rapper who glided by Lil Monnie23 and was gunned down a 12 months later in a taking pictures on Interstate 580.
In White’s case, prosecutors contend that he was a gang member who had a feud with a person who glided by the nickname “Contemporary” and that he and different gunmen travelled to the world of 107th Avenue and Apricot Road in East Oakland on Jan. 21, 2021 to seek for Contemporary or his associates. Within the gun battle that adopted, White and Williams had been each struck by gunfire and hospitalized.
Police say Avalos, 38, of San Lorenzo, had no connection to the shooters. He was dropping off meals for a buddy who had COVID-19 when he was fatally wounded by a stray bullet.
Prosecutors argued in opposition to the dismissal, submitting a written response that mentioned Shriro’s movement was only a rehashing of failed argument he made earlier than the Justice of the Peace at Williams’ Might 18 preliminary listening to.
The Alameda County District Lawyer has the choice to re-file fees in opposition to Williams however has not opted to take action. Reardon’s ruling doesn't have an effect on the case in opposition to White, which stays lively.