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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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Alleged Riders victim killed in apparent carjacking
Wednesday June 18, 2003
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) A 19-year-old man who received a
six-figure settlement from the city of Oakland after he said he was
beaten up and had drugs planted on him by a team of police officers
calling themselves The Riders was killed in an apparent carjacking.
Matthew Watson died early Tuesday after being shot during a
robbery, according to Oakland police Lt. Jim Emery. His 1990
Cadillac Seville remains missing.
Watson was among those who testified at the trial of fired
police officers Clarence ``Chuck'' Mabanag, Jude Siapno and Matthew
Hornung. The jury is in its third week of deliberating whether they
are guilty of framing and abusing suspected drug dealers in West
Oakland in the summer of 2000.
``I wanted this kid to survive and make it out of the community
so bad,'' attorney John Burris told the Oakland Tribune. Burris
represented Watson and 118 others who claimed to have been abused
by The Riders.
``I feel like it is a great loss, personally,'' Burris said.
``He still had a chance.''
Watson got a ``significant'' share of the nearly $11 million
settlement Burris negotiated with the city of Oakland in the Riders
civil suit, Burris said.
``I talked to him about vision and dreams. He couldn't see it.
He just couldn't see past West Oakland,'' said Burris, adding he'd
tried unsuccessfully to persuade Watson to take the cash in
structured payments over time rather than in one lump sum.
Prosecutor David Hollister argued in court that Siapno and Frank
Vazquez, the alleged Riders ringleader who is believed to have fled
to Mexico, kidnapped and assaulted Watson.
A photograph in court showed Watson's left eye swollen shut and
his lip swollen and bloody.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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