Unarmed WW2 Vet Victimized by Armed Teen

A 17-year-old Fresno boy accused of putting a gun in the mouth of a 92-year-old World War II veteran during a home invasion robbery last October made his first court appearance Thursday.

For months, Dezman Shang Kenner evaded arrest because sheriff’s detectives didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.

It took some old-fashioned police work by Jimmy Olson, a senior investigator with the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, to break the case. He tracked down witnesses that led to the arrest of Kenner earlier this week, court records show.

Kenner has been confined at the county’s Juvenile Justice Center for a violation of probation since his arrest in November, authorities said. Now he faces charges that, if upheld, could land him in prison for up to 25 years.

Because of the violence used against the veteran, Josef Martin, Kenner is being charged as an adult in Fresno County Superior Court.

Wearing leg irons and handcuffs, the tall and slender Kenner was supposed to be charged Thursday. But his arraignment was rescheduled for April 1 to give the Public Defender’s Office time to determine whether it has a conflict in representing him.

Until he is arraigned, Kenner will remain at the Juvenile Justice Center in lieu of posting $605,000 bail, Judge W. Kent Hamlin ordered.

In November, Sheriff Margaret Mims announced the arrest of three teens and accused them of breaking into Martin’s home in southeast Fresno during the early hours of Oct. 23. The sheriff said one of the suspects thrust a gun in Martin’s mouth and threatened to kill him.

Martin, a decorated Army soldier who survived the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, also was pistol-whipped, beaten and his head was slammed into a wall, Mims said. The assailants stole $200 and jewelry before getting away.

Kenner is the last of three defendants to face charges. Keith Scott, 16, and a 12-year-old boy have confessed to their involvement, court records show. Scott, who was tried in adult court, pleaded guilty on March 13 to felony home-invasion robbery. He faces up to five years in juvenile prison when he is sentenced June 11. The 12-year-old was sentenced in December to the Juvenile Justice Center for a year as part of a rehabilitation program for pre-adolescents. The Bee does not identify minors who are tried as juveniles.

A court affidavit made public Thursday revealed why it took so long to file charges against Kenner.

The affidavit says Martin was sleeping when the intruders rousted him from his bed and pointed a black handgun at his face. “I’ll kill you, you son of a (expletive),” the gunman said, according to the affidavit.

Scott identified Kenner as the gunman in the home-invasion robbery of Martin’s home near Olive and Willow avenues, the affidavit says.

The 12-year-old confessed to breaking into Martin’s home by crawling through a garage window. He then opened the garage door to let Scott and Kenner in, the affidavit says.

According to the 12-year-old, while he and Scott ransacked the house, Kenner held Martin captive in his bedroom. At one point, the 12-year-old told detectives that he went into Martin’s bedroom and saw Kenner push Martin into a closet, the affidavit says. Martin “was bleeding from the right side of his eye and from the back of his head.”

Scott told detectives that he saw Kenner hit Martin in the head with the gun — a black six-shot revolver, the affidavit says.

But Scott’s and the 12-year-old admissions weren’t enough to get an arrest warrant for Kenner. Detectives need independent corroboration of their accounts. That came on March 11, when Olson interviewed two females who knew the trio.

One of the females told Olson that “Kenner told her that he had hit the old man in the head with a gun,” Olson writes in the affidavit.

While talking with Kenner, one female said he pulled the gun out of his backpack. She described weapon “as an old-school gun, with a round thing (cylinder) that turns and the bullets go in,” Olson wrote.

The female said the gun was black with a dark brown handle. She then described how Kenner “had hit the old man” with it, the affidavit says. “Kenner held onto the barrel of the gun and then swung it in a hammering-type motion, like he was hitting the old man in the head.”

Another female told Olson that she took Kenner and Scott to a downtown Fresno pawn shop to sell necklaces and rings. Olson later went to the pawn shop and got the sales receipt of the transaction.

It is not yet known whether Olson or sheriff’s detectives have recovered the revolver or the items stolen from Martin’s home. Mims said at the November news conference that there had been other home-invasion robberies near Martin’s home.

In a telephone interview, Martin said Thursday that stolen loot has not been returned to him, but he’s pleased that detectives never gave up on the case.

“They say they’re kids, but they’re nothing but a bunch of animals,” he said. “They should be put in a cage and locked up for life.”

Martin said he’s still aching from the beating and will never forget having a gun shoved into his mouth.

“How can I forget? What they did will be with me for the rest of my life,” he said.

Martin, who served in the Army for nine years as a corporal and tank driver, and was decorated for fighting in several battles, said he wishes he could have faced the kids one on one. “I would have kicked their butt,” he said.

He then lamented how society has changed. “In the old days, kids would rake leaves or mow grass to make a buck,” he said. “Nowadays, they want fast cash.”

The erosion of children’s morals, Martin said, can be traced to one thing: “Where’s the parents of these kids?”

The reporter can be reached at (559) 441-6434, or @beecourts on Twitter.

If the vet had shot that bastard, the liberal media would be crying racism. I’m glad they’re trying him as an adult, and I hope he gets what he deserves in prison.  You gave that old man hell, Dezman, now it’s your turn.