SAN FRANCISCO — The 17-year-old charged with attempted murder, attempted second-degree robbery and assault with a semiautomatic weapon in the shooting of San Francisco 49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall waived his right to a speedy trial in his second court appearance on Tuesday at the Juvenile Justice Center in San Francisco.
The next hearing in the matter is scheduled for Sept. 26.
“Hopefully by then, the prosecution will have made a decision with regard of whether or not to pursue this (case) as a juvenile, and of course we’re hoping that they’ll see my client for the teenager that he is and allow this to proceed in that fashion,” San Francisco public defender Robert Dunlap told reporters after the brief hearing.
Dunlap said that his investigator unearthed new surveillance footage of the Aug. 31 incident in downtown San Francisco which he hopes might help his client against the charge of attempted murder.
“It was a rather extended struggle between Mr. Pearsall and my client,” Dunlap said, describing this security footage. “They were really fighting back and forth on the sidewalk. As you might imagine, Mr. Pearsall gets the best of it. He does kind of — I don’t know if you’ve ever wrestled or not — a nice hip toss and throws my client to the ground and ends up on top of him.
“… I think (the video) supports that this is an attempted robbery and not an attempted murder.”
Police said that three shots were fired during the altercation. One hit Pearsall in the chest and exited out his back, according to a Facebook post from the wideout’s mother, Erin Pearsall. The bullet missed all of Pearsall’s vital organs. He was released from San Francisco General Hospital less than 24 hours after the shooting and returned to the 49ers facility the next day.
At Monday night’s season-opening win over the New York Jets, the 49ers and Pearsall honored SFPD Sergeant Joelle Harrell — the first responder — and surgeon Dr. Lucy Kornblith, who tended to the receiver at San Francisco General Hospital.
Another bullet hit the defendant in the forearm. This wound, like Pearsall’s, was a “through and through” — meaning that it passed through the body without inflicting any major structural damage.
“(The defendant) crossed the street when he saw the police cruiser there,” Dunlap said. “He held up his arm to show that he was shot. Because he was fearful that he would bleed out and he might have had they not applied pressure and not applied a tourniquet.”
The defendant will remain in custody through at least the Sept. 26 hearing. If the office of San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins decides to pursue charges in adult court, it would have to file a petition to set up a fitness hearing. For the time being, the defendant — who is from Tracy, Calif. — will be held in San Francisco. Once this incident involving Pearsall is adjudicated, the defendant will be transferred to San Joaquin County, where he faces another pending legal matter, the details of which have not been divulged in court.
Dunlap denied the accuracy of a report in the Daily Mail on Monday that alleged the defendant “brandished a gun at his high school just one week before” the attack on Pearsall. There is a police report filed by the Tracy Police Department which contains the basic details of the incident — but much of the report is redacted due to juvenile confidentiality.
“The report in the Daily Mail was false,” Dunlap said. “My client did not have a gun at school. It’s a false report.”
Dunlap then declined to discuss specifics of the defendant’s other pending legal matter in San Joaquin County.
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