Sandy MaloneAlameda County, CA – The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) is blaming the county’s woke district attorney for a teenager linked to three murders only getting seven years in juvenile hall.
The sheriff’s department posted a “homicide update” to social media on Friday that explained why an 18-year-old defendant who murdered another man during a road rage incident on Sept. 18, 2022, had only been charged as a juvenile in the case.
The incident occurred on Lewelling Boulevard near Hesperian Boulevard in San Lorenzo when Sergio Morales-Jacquez was 17 years old, KTVU reported.
Sheriff’s detectives who investigated the fatal shooting of Rienheart Asuncion determined that his murder was the result of a road rage confrontation with Morales-Jacquez.
“The investigation revealed Asuncion was shot and killed by 17-year-old Sergio Morales-Jacquez, who was driving a stolen vehicle,” the sheriff’s office posted.
Morales-Jacquez fled the murder scene in the stolen vehicle and evaded capture.
However, he was later arrested on unrelated gun charges and held at the Juvenile Justice Center.
Sheriff’s detectives found him there, KTVU reported.
The sheriff’s office said that Morales-Jacquez was also a person of interest in two other murder investigations at the same time.
Morales-Jacquez is also charged with fatally shooting teen brothers Angel and Jazy Sotelo Garcia and wounding multiple other people after he opened fire at a party two weeks after the murder of Asuncion, the New York Post reported.
Investigators determined the brothers weren’t the target of the shooting.
The district attorney has requested that Morales-Jacquez be tried as an adult in that double murder and that request is under review, according to the New York Post.
The teen was also considered a suspect in another murder case in the nearby town of Fremont, according to the Berkeley Scanner.
“Morales-Jacquez was charged with Asuncion’s murder in November 2022,” the sheriff’s post continued. “Due to Morales-Jacquez’s extensive and violent criminal history in multiple jurisdictions, a petition was submitted to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to have Morales-Jacquez charged as an adult. Unfortunately, that petition was denied, and Morales-Jacquez was charged as a juvenile for the murder of Asuncion in March 2023.”
The now-18-year-old was sentenced to just seven years in the Juvenile Justice Center for the murder of Asuncion, KTVU reported.
However, the sheriff’s department warned that Morales-Jacquez could be given probation and released even sooner.
Morales-Jacquez could be back on the streets before he is 25, according to the post.
“Seven years for three murder cases? That is telling these kids that they are in control. Nothing — and I mean nothing — is a big deal anymore,” a former local prosecutor told the New York Post.
The prosecutor said that juveniles have been committing increasingly violent crimes at earlier ages.
“Forget 16 and 17,” he told the New York Post. “We’re seeing kids getting into gang life at 10 now. Violent felony cases for kids under 15 are not a rare occurrence anymore. That’s why this approach is going to be a major, major problem.”
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, a self-described “progressive,” vowed to lower jail terms when she ran for office in 2022.
Family members of the other victims are concerned about Price’s leniency, the New York Post reported.
In recent months, several high-profile members of the district attorney’s office have resigned, including two veteran prosecutors who had served for 26 and 17 years, respectively.
They said they left the prosecutor’s office because Price’s “decarceral” emphasis blurred the lines between criminal and victim, the New York Post reported.
Price’s campaign website promised to “stop over-criminalizing youth” and “stop charging and/or incarcerating youths under the age of 18 as adults.”
Since taking office, she has also opted out of gang and gun enhancements to charges in multiple cases, the New York Post reported.
Holly Matkin
