By Tiffany Yeh
Kenneth Gates faces trial in Yolo County this week, charged with second degree robbery with a case enhancement of use of a “deadly or dangerous weapon,” a BB gun.
The opening statement by Deputy District Attorney Alvina Tzang laid down the prosecution’s side of the story from the afternoon of March 17, 2015. The manager of Dollar General is responsible for protecting the assets of the store. At the end of her shift that day, Gates walked into the store. Around 3:40pm the defendant again walked into the store. He had stolen razor blades the day before, on March 16, 2015, and had fled the scene afterward.
On March 17, an employee at Dollar General told the manager that she had seen the same guy, the defendant, the day before. On this day, the manager had a chance to confront the defendant and tell him that she wanted him to return the property. She called the defendant’s name aloud. The defendant pulled a black and silver gun out from his right pants pocket a few inches, showing the handle and part of the barrel to the manager.
While making this action, he said to her, “Does this look real to you?” After this, the manager turned away from the defendant and appeared calm but was actually scared inside. There were a lot of teenagers inside the store. The Dollar General manager told the kids to stay in the store and locked the doors of the store. She then called the Woodland dispatch, saying there was a man outside with a gun.
Ms. Tzang said that the manager was trying to be calm. By now, the defendant was long gone. She was able to pick out the defendant from a lineup. Woodland Police Officer Richard Rayls said that the next day, March 18, the defendant was wearing the exact same outfit as he had been wearing on March 17. The defendant admitted in the store that he had grabbed a drink (a soda), and that the day before, he stole some razors. One razor was found on the defendant.
The firearm was “just a BB gun,” which he had stolen on March 17 from Walmart. He had metal BBs in possession. He said that he had thrown the gun in the dumpster, but when the police officer tried to recover the weapon from the dumpster, it was not there. DDA Zhang stated, “We don’t know if it’s a real gun or not.” There was no clear plastic or brightly colored tip to the weapon in question in this case, indicating a toy. The manager described believing that the gun looked like a real gun.
On March 17, 2015, at 12:30pm, Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Middleman had done a search on and detained the defendant. It was a lawful search. The bulge was at the defendant’s waistband area, and he lifted it up. The manager thought it was real gun. A BB gun is a type of air gun that fires steel balls, propelled by carbon dioxide. There is a photo of the defendant with this gun. The BB gun was released when the defendant was released.
The employee of the Dollar General described the weapon as looking similar to and a little smaller than a 9mm gun. A little silver spot was on top of the gun. The crime against a person, Ms. Tzang stated, is that the defendant threatened the manager, she turned her back in fear and called the police on her phone. There was also threatening with violence.
Defense Attorney Bob Spangler then gave the defense’s side of the story.
Defendant Gates is homeless. He had a pellet gun in his pocket for protection. He had stolen a soda that day, and razor blades the day before. He was told, “You’re not welcome here.” The manager had noticed something in his right pocket and told him to lift up his hoodie so she could see what was in the pocket. When the manager asked for his pistol, the defendant said, “This is all I got. That’s not yours.” The defendant offered to make good on the razors when Officer Rayls questioned him.
The prosecution’s first witness was the manager of the Dollar General store. She had worked there for a total of three years and a couple months.
She described her policy as letting the shoplifter give the product back or pay for it. She usually tries to be loud and make herself look big, and to stand a couple feet away from the shoplifter in confrontational situations. She is used to dealing with shoplifters on a daily basis, and sometimes multiple times a day.
She will call the police on the shoplifter in almost every case. When they pay for the item after she asks, then she does not officially report them. In many cases, she calls the police to facilitate getting a no trespassing order on the person. There are cameras down many of the aisles in the store and outside the store. The store has closed circuit TV for monitoring.
On March 17, the manager was on duty. On that day, the store opened at 8am. Around 3:30pm that day, the store was very busy. Two schools in Woodland end class for the day around that time. It is common for 12 to 20 kids to be at the Dollar General around that time of day.
She was taking a break, while two other employees were at work. One of the employees asked her to come help with turning a key for a void or price change for a transaction, so she did help with that.
Some time afterwards, one of the employees let her know that Kenneth Gates was at the store and was about to leave, that he had been there yesterday and had stolen some razors. Yesterday, they called the police and observed him in person shoplifting but were not able to talk to him because he had left or run away from the store.
On this day, March 17, the manager went into her office, grabbed the office phone and her cell phone (the office phone loses a signal sometimes). She walked outside, past the employee watching where Kenneth Gates was.
The manager talked to the defendant outside the store, at the right hand side. They were about 15 or 20 feet away from the front door and there were no surveillance cameras recording that area. When they spoke, he was facing her. They were approximately five feet away from each other.
The manager said that she knows his name, that he had stolen from the store, and that he had stolen the day before. If he wanted the product, she would have allowed him to pay for it. The defendant did not offer to pay. His hands were in his pants pocket.
The manager saw the handle—black with silver coloring on the side. He asked her, “Does this look real?” as he pulled the gun out of his pocket. The tip did not show but the handle and half the barrel was visible. She didn’t notice any bulges on his jeans pants. He had “baggy jeans on, gray and a dark blue hoodie.” The hoodie was a zip-up hoodie.
The manager described growing up in a hunting family and learning to shoot since she was four years old. She saw the full handle, trigger part, and half the barrel. “It looked like a 9mm to me.” After seeing the weapon, she turned around, walking very quickly back to the store. She feared for her life, that he was going to shoot her in her back, and there were kids all there outside the store, and she got the kids in the store.
She pushed the kids to the back of the store and was worried for everyone’s safety. She was scared. As she said all this, her voice was cracking a bit and she sounded emotional.
The manager locked the doors, and called the Woodland police dispatch (she had memorized their number) instead of calling 911. It took a few minutes for the police officer to get to the store—it did not feel very long. She got the kids in, her employee was by the front door, and customers were trying to come in. They were standing on the sidewalk, where she had had the confrontation and turned her back on the defendant. She told the dispatcher all that.
When the officer arrived, he looked for Gates but did not see or find him. A report was taken and copies of the surveillance video were made and given to the police.
After that whole event, then the manager looked through the surveillance footage and saw that Gates had stolen a soda that afternoon.
Officer Rayls had asked her to point out Gates from a photo, and she was able to do so successfully, in less than a second.
Afternoon Portion of the Trial
By Lindsay Christenson
The trial for Kenneth Gates resumed in the afternoon on February 9, 2016. The afternoon proceedings began with the deputy district attorney, Alvina Tzang, calling Deputy Robert Middleman to the witness stand. Middleman has been a deputy sheriff for roughly two years and was on duty on the afternoon of March 17, 2015, around 12:30 pm. He identified Gates walking west on Gibson in Woodland and proceeded to search him. Middleman searched the defendant’s body and felt an item in his waistband, in the front center, which he initially thought to be a large belt buckle. He lifted Gates’ shirt to find the handle of what appeared to be a gun. He then grabbed Gates’ hand and cuffed him while the other deputy on duty grabbed the gun.
During this time, the defendant stated, “Don’t trip, it’s a BB gun.” The deputies did not initially believe the statement, but Middleman confirmed that, after holding the weapon, he knew it was not a real gun, due to its weight. The entire gun was black, a 1911-style model, and powered by CO2 cartridges. In his cross-examination, defense attorney Bob Spangler clarified that Mr. Gates had no CO2 cartridges on him during the time of this incident.
After Deputy Middleman was dismissed, the People called another witness, to the stand, a store employee. She had been an employee of Dollar General on West Main Street in Woodland on March 17, 2015. She proceeded to describe the events that occurred on that day involving Mr. Gates. She saw him enter the store around 3:30pm and recognized him from the previous day, when she had watched him steal razors from the store. She watched Gates walk into the store, and walk down an aisle while she was on a register. Then he turned a corner, coming back into the employee’s view. She watched him put something into his pocket and then leave the store. She then said that the store manager followed Gates outside to confront him. She recounted her recollection of the incident. She said the manager told Gates that she, the manager, had seen him steal, Gates denied the accusation, and the manager continued to insist he give back the stolen items or she would call the police. Mr. Gates responded to this statement by pulling what appeared to be a gun out of the front of his pants and said, “This is all I got, and this isn’t yours. Does this look real to you?” After this, the manager backed up inside to the store, along with the employee, and the two locked the door and called the police. The two had been particularly concerned about the safety of the school-aged children who were lingering near the front of the store during this encounter.
Ms. Tzang played a video from the store cameras in which Mr. Gates is seen taking a drink from an aisle of the store, walking to the back of the store, and then concealing the drink underneath his clothing.
Next, the People called Officer Richard Rayls as a witness. Rayls has been a Woodland police officer for 15 years and he was on duty on the 17th of March when he received a call about a weapons violation at the Dollar General in Woodland. Rayls arrived in a matter of minutes and described the store manager’s demeanor as scared and flustered, and stated that her voice kept cracking. Rayls reviewed the camera tapes with the manager and, after examining the aisle, the two determined that he had stolen a Squirt from a 6-pack within the store.
The next day, around noon on March 18, Officer Rayls located the defendant. He was wearing the same clothing from the previous day. Rayls walked up to Gates, and Gates moved his arm closer to the center of his pants. Rayls drew his firearm in response and told him to put his hands behind his back. Rayls searched the defendant and found a bag of metal BBs, as well as a disposable razor.
The defendant proceeded to tell the officer what had occurred, explaining that the bag of BBs belonged to a BB gun he had stolen from Walmart a few days prior and that, after the incident at the Dollar General, he had crossed the street and dumped the BB gun into a dumpster. The two drove to this dumpster but, as it was roughly 24 hours later, the gun was not found.
Officer Rayls also stated that he had talked with the defendant about his prior drug use and Gates admitted that he had used methamphetamine before the crime, but had said he was not high during the incident.
Mr. Spangler had Rayls clarify that Gates was cooperative during this process and that he had no gun or weapon on him at the time of his arrest on the 18th.
Next, Mr. Spangler called Gates to the stand to testify. He began by clarifying Gates’ prior prison record, with charges involving prior theft crimes, 2nd degree burglary, and auto theft. The defendant stated that he was homeless and had become so after getting out of prison for auto theft. He had been released to find his wife had left and they lost custody of their daughter, and he had then became addicted to meth. Per Spangler’s prompting, Gates acknowledged that there are resources available for his drug addiction, but that they all require an individual to be sober, and the drugs were driving his decisions at that point in time.
Gates also admitted to stealing both the razor and the gun. He had said he needed the razor to shave and he needed the gun for his own protection. He stated he has made many enemies, both in and out of prison, and the gun would be useful in scaring people away.
Gates also admitted to taking meth the morning of the 16th and said he had been up all night prior to the Dollar General incident. Gates then recounted the incident at the store.
After taking the soda and exiting the store, Gates said he had been standing ready to cross the street when the store manager had called him by his first name. She said she recognized him from stealing on the previous day, and Gates responded by saying he had no money for the razors, but he asked if he could come back the next day with the money. The manager then asked what he had stolen on this day, and pointed to his right pocket. Gates then lifted up his sweatshirt to reveal the BB gun in his pants waistband. He said, “This is all I got, this isn’t yours.” Gates claimed that he did not think of the alternate implications of this sentence until he saw the expression of shock on the manager’s face.
After the manager retreated into the store, Gates crossed the street and headed to the Economy Market, where there were five to ten homeless people lingering. He dumped the BB gun in the trash and admitted that one of those transients could have taken the gun, explaining why he and Officer Rayls could not later find it.
In his cross-examination by Ms. Tzang, Gates admitted that he has been using drugs for about 30 years. He uses meth daily, during the periods when he is using. He said he has been clean in the past, but has always fallen back into drug abuse. When he went to jail he participated in a prison drug program, but did not stay clean while serving his time.
He claimed that he can afford to sustain his addiction because he gets the drugs through his friends and contacts for free. Gates also admitted that he has sold merchandise he has stolen in the past.
