Five men appear in court facing charges ranging from attempted murder to machine gun possession
Five men appeared in San Francisco Superior Court this morning facing charges ranging from attempted murder to machine gun possession after an investigation into a drive-by shooting in the Bayview.
Amid tight security, codefendants Jacobi Sanford, Shaquille Dumetz, Deonte White, Phillip Stewart and Jahari Oliver were brought before Judge Christine Van Aken for a status hearing.
Sanford, Dumetz and White were arrested in the early morning of February 13 at a house on Maddux Avenue. Police recovered an arsenal: a Glock 23, a Glock 26, a Glock 27, a P80 .223 AR pistol, and another Glock 26 which, court documents say, was adapted to function as an automatic weapon.
Stewart and Oliver were booked on the same day.
The 2023 drive-by shooting – on the 1100 block of Donner Avenue – saw one man hospitalized with a gunshot wound and the ground littered with shell casings.
A criminal complaint alleges that in the afternoon of September 7 2023 Dumetz, Oliver and Stewart traveled in convoy from Oakland to the Alice Griffith Apartments on Donner Avenue in the Bayview. Dumetz and Stewart led the way in a stolen Infiniti G37. On arrival the Infiniti drove past a man and opened fire on him before speeding off.
SFPD’s Bayview station later reported that 18 shell casings were found in the aftermath of the incident. The victim, who received a gunshot wound to the leg, made his own way to hospital and apparently refused to cooperate with police. A nearby home was damaged by gunfire.
Prosecutors say that the Infiniti decamped to Rome Street where it was joined by another vehicle – a Hyundai in which Oliver and another man were traveling. There they endeavored to clean the Infiniti before abandoning it and driving off together in the Hyundai.
The victim was Brian Vandercourt. Vandercourt is a cocaine dealer who, at 18-years-old was labelled a “serial auto burglary suspect” by San Francisco Police.
In the early hours of February 13, law enforcement arrested Dumetz and two other associates: Jacobi Sanford and Deonte White at a house on Maddux Avenue in the Bayview district.
There, prosecutors say, police recovered five firearms, a Glock 23, a Glock 26, a Glock 27, a P80 .223 AR pistol, and another Glock 26 which, court documents say, was adapted to function as an automatic weapon.
The two other defendants were arrested at other locations and also booked that morning.
Jacobi Sanford most recently served a two year federal sentence for being a felon in possession of an AR-15-style rifle equipped with an extended magazine. SFPD officers found the rifle in a stolen Dodge Charger he was driving – a vehicle suspected of involvement in multiple residential burglaries in the city. A subsequent search of Sanford’s phone uncovered photos of him brandishing the weapon.
He was last arrested in the Bayview on July 10 2023 – where he is forbidden to be by the terms of his supervised release. Notably this did not provoke federal officials to bring him back to court.
Phillip Stewart pleaded guilty to assault with a semiautomatic firearm in 2011 and was sentenced to nine years in state prison. A German tourist, 50-year-old Mechthild Schröer – was killed by a gunshot one block from Union Square after rival gang members opened fire on each other. Two others were hurt in the infamous August 2010 incident.
Shaquille Dumetz is a prolific auto burglar. Deonte White and Jahari Oliver also have lengthy arrest records.
Today Judge Christine Van Aken told attorneys that she anticipated the preliminary hearing might be heard before Judge Michael McNaughton when a trial he is overseeing concludes. She scheduled a further status hearing on March 19 at which she indicated she would entertain any motions for release – one being presaged by an attorney for Oliver who stated that he has a medical condition being exacerbated by custody.
The cases continue.
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