3 CHARGED WITH MURDER IN SLAYING
Security guard at illegal Spring Valley dispensary gunned down in June ’20
SAN DIEGO
Authorities on Tuesday announced charges against four men and one woman in connection with the slaying of 59-year-old security guard Kenneth Love II at an unlicensed cannabis dispensary in
Spring Valley in June 2020.
The three men charged with murder in Love’s shooting death are 30-year-old Daveon Dajuan Hicks Sr. and 29-year-old Curry James Williams Jr., who both live in Compton, and 41-year-old San Diego resident Jamal Johnson. Prosecutors have also charged the trio with 10 other felonies in connection with an alleged extortion plot and two other shootings in July and November 2019 in the Spring Valley area.
Prosecutors said the three shootings were part of a “broader scheme to extort ... illegal dispensaries for money.”
Adrian Kasey Batten, 36, was charged with conspiracy to commit extortion and other charges related to the Spring Valley shootings, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Jester Ramos, 28, has been charged with attempted robbery and shooting at an occupied building.
Authorities arrested Hicks and Williams on July 1 in Compton, about a week after sheriff ’s officials asked the public for help on June 23 identifying a “person of interest” in the homicide. Johnson and Batten were arrested July 7 after stepping off a plane in Los Angeles, and Ramos was arrested that same day at his San Diego home.
All five defendants have been arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Hicks and Williams are members of a Los An
geles gang, while Johnson is “associated” with a San Diego gang. The group used “threats and violence to intimidate” the owners of unlicensed dispensaries if extortion money wasn’t paid, prosecutors said in a statement.
“This case demonstrates how violent gang crime knows no borders and criminals will exploit any opportunity, such as marijuana dispensaries operating illegally, to make money,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said in the news release.
Love was gunned down around 11 p.m. June 2 of last year while working security at an unlicensed dispensary on Troy Street near Sweetwater Road, just east of state Route 125, according to sheriff ’s investigators. The husband and father of three died at the scene.
Late last month, sheriff ’s homicide investigators renewed their calls for help in solving the case after earlier in the year enlisting the help of agents from the FBI’s violent crimes task force. Detectives released a surveillance photograph of a “person of interest,” and on June 23 went door to door in the Spring Valley neighborhood surrounding the shooting site, handing out flyers with the man’s photograph.
Prosecutors did not say whether that effort led directly to the arrests, but Sheriff William Gore said in the news release that his department was “grateful to the public for submitting tips when we made renewed calls for new information.”
The arrests began in Los Angeles County eight days after that effort, on July 1, when police officers, sheriff ’s deputies and FBI agents served warrants at two locations in Compton and one each in Bellflower, Hawthorne and Long Beach. They arrested Hicks and Williams at their homes in Compton and discovered five guns between the five locations.
The arrests continued last Wednesday when San Diego sheriff’s detectives arrested Johnson and Batten shortly after they landed at Los Angeles International Airport. Later that same day, a sheriff’s SWAT unit raided Ramos’ San Diego home and arrested him there.
Jail records showed the three murder suspects all remained in custody Tuesday night without bail, while Batten was in custody at the Las Colinas women’s jail in Santee in lieu of $175,000 bail. Ramos was no longer in custody as of Tuesday, according to jail records.