Gascón ordered the suspected killer’s event go to juvenile court, although he was only 1 month shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the murders.
Donato Cruikshank is behind bars for shooting two sisters, 16-year-old Sierra Brown and 27-year-old Uniek Atkins, to passing before burning their Los Angeles apartment in 2018. Cruikshank was Sierra’s ex-boyfriend, according to investigators.
Their mom Felicia Andrew is demanding justice for her brothers.
“That is so devastating for us.
Cruikshank fled the scene in her daughter’s car and took all their tech devices, including cell phones and Apple watches, to make sure he could not be traced back into the crime scene, Andrew stated.
“[Cruikshank] came back into the scene together with us acted like he did not understand what had occurred. He even interviewed with the police officers and kept his calm,” Andrew said.
Andrew said she had three grandkids left mothers after her daughters’ deaths.
She had a meeting Gascón at 2020, where he informed her he had”look over the case and not use his blanket coverage .”
“He was quite cold-hearted, he did not look like, you know, he cared… in the end of the call he explained,’I have been a police officer, LAPD for many years and I have seen a lot of murders,” Andrew said.
Kathy Cady, a former Los Angeles County DA prosecutor, was representing the victim’s families and maintained that the California law allows for a district attorney’s office to utilize its discretion to ask the court to take care of a juvenile as an adult.
“Because this specific person was just 1 month shy at his birthday, the district attorney’s office, shortly after the crime happened, had filed the motion to ask that the defendant be observed in adult court,” Cady said.
Cady mentioned the motion was pending for the past two years and Gascón’s youth justice policies forced prosecutors to withdraw the motion.
“We’re hopeful that the judge could make an exception and allow or earn a hearing where he would be able to decide whether the defendant must proceed up to adult court or remain in juvenile court,” Cady said. “Unfortunately, the judge didn’t believe that he had the power to do that it was totally up into the district attorney’s discretion.”
