OAKLAND — A man was sentenced to nine years in state prison after pleading no contest to a fatal shooting at a San Leandro skate park, court records show.
Devin Stevenson, 31, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the June 2023 shooting death of 23-year-old Darrion Johnson, and in return, prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him. Stevenson was transferred to North Kern State Prison in April, records show.
The plea deal was reached in January, just three months after police arrested Stevenson and a woman, Ebony Cook, on murder and accessory charges, respectively. Cook was released from jail the day after her Oct. 17 arrest, but missed a court appearance the following week and has been listed as a wanted fugitive ever since, records show.
At the change-of-plea hearing, Stevenson’s lawyer, Annie Beles, said Stevenson was accepting the plea “to avoid further risks” of taking the murder case to trial, but said there were problems with the prosecution’s theory. Prosecutors acknowledged “gaps” in their evidence that prevented having an exact blow-by-blow of what led up to he homicide.
But court records say that Stevenson and Johnson were engaged in a heated argument around 9 p.m. on June 15, 2023, while hanging out at the skate park next to the REACH Ashland Youth Center, located at 16313 East 14th Street in San Leandro. One eyewitness would tell police that Johnson, Stevenson, Cook, and others had hatched a plan to do some “illegal s—” but there were concerns that Stevenson and Cook would be a liability.
Johnson firmly told the group that he wanted to exclude Cook and Stevenson from their plan, accusing them of drunkenness, and going so far to call Stevenson a “bum.” One person present for this argument told police that they saw a pistol at Johnson’s waistband, according to court records. At some point, Stevenson reportedly pulled a gun and shot Johnson at least once.
Police recovered the pistol used to kill Johnson and found Stevenson’s DNA on it, according to court records.