A gang member caught with a firearm in San Francisco’s India Basin district, just months after being released from a prison term imposed for a previous firearms offense, pleaded guilty today in federal court to weapons possession charges.
Ramell Jenkins was a passenger in a car that led police on a high speed chase after suspected involvement in a robbery on May 22, 2023. He admitted that a loaded Sig Sauer 9mm pistol equipped with an extended magazine was his.
Three other firearms were found by police.
Jenkins, 26, has six previous felony convictions. In 2020 he was found with a loaded gun in his pants while in the company of a fellow member of the Klapshit gang, with whom he was forbidden from associating by the terms of his probation.
In 2017 he received a 40 month sentence for four other gun crimes (which included a 24-month term for a ‘street terrorism’ enhancement).
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, sitting at Oakland federal courthouse, accepted the guilty plea and ordered pre-sentence reports to be prepared.
Sentencing will take place at 1:00pm on January 23, 2024. Jenkins remains in custody.
Jenkins and an accomplice, Carlos Contreras, were arrested on the early evening of May 23, 2022 near the intersection of Evans Avenue and Third Street. Their vehicle was pursued by police who believed it had been involved in an East Bay robbery.
Two others evaded arrests as the suspects decamped from the vehicle and fled.
In addition to the Sig Sauer weapon which Jenkins admitted was his, three other firearms were recovered.
At the time of his arrest, Jenkins was on post-release community supervision, having completed his last prison term for firearms possession less than six months earlier.
In Antioch in 2020 he was found with a loaded gun in his pants while in the company of a fellow member of the Klapshit gang, with whom he was forbidden from associating by the terms of his parole – on which he had just embarked having, again, been released months earlier from another sentence.
Jenkins was sentenced by Judge White to 24 months in custody for that offense – the term recommended by the defense. Had the judge imposed a sentence at or beyond the Government-preferred term of 30 months’ then it is possible that Jenkins would have still been in custody at the time of his most recent escapade.
Regardless, within six months of release, he was armed and involved in serious crime. And, even sooner, he had begun breaching his probation conditions by taking drugs.
He had previously received concurrent 16 month sentences for four other gun crimes alongside a 24 month consecutive sentence for ‘Street Terrorism’ enhancements.
Today Judge White accepted Jenkins’ guilty plea to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and his admission to two probation violation charges. White ordered the preparation of pre-sentence reports and set sentencing for 1:00pm on January 23, 2024 in Oakland federal courthouse.
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