Court records in Alameda County have filled in the background of Saturday's shooting in Dublin, California, and the picture is uglier than the first reports suggested.
Jonathan McKinsey, 40, director of engineering for New York Times Games, was shot multiple times around three o'clock in the afternoon in the parking lot of the Dublin Sports Grounds. Witnesses told police they watched two people take turns firing, then walk away.
His parents-in-law, Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, were arrested minutes later at a nearby intersection. They are held at Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, conspiracy, willful discharge of a firearm, and child abuse. That last count reportedly stems from the shooting occurring in a public park where children were present. Arraignment is set for Wednesday.
What the file shows.
McKinsey and his wife Candice Jang were married fourteen years and have three children.
In October of last year, Jang obtained a domestic violence restraining order against him. That same month, Alameda County prosecutors charged McKinsey with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse. According to a probable cause statement, Jang alleged he struck their six-year-old son in the face with an open hand, and cited a 2018 incident in which she said he grabbed her arm hard enough to leave a bruise.
On the same day, deputies reportedly found a two-year-old girl left unsupervised at the home for more than an hour while McKinsey had gone shopping.
He pleaded not guilty and was ordered to complete twelve parenting classes. He was due back in court on that case next week.
In December, McKinsey sought his own restraining order against Jang and filed for divorce days later. He alleged she had struck him with a frying pan in 2013.
Last month, a judge granted him unsupervised public visits with his children. Jang had previously held legal and physical custody.
One more thing in those documents.
McKinsey, who was transgender, alleged in court filings that Chen, his mother-in-law, used anti-LGBTQ slurs against him and against one of the couple's children, calling them a disgusting queer and a pervert.
Chen is one of the two people now charged with killing him.
Some reporting indicates the filings also include an allegation that McKinsey threatened his spouse. We have not been able to independently verify that claim and are noting it as reported rather than established.
How to read a file like this.
Every allegation above is an allegation. McKinsey never went to trial on the child abuse counts and pleaded not guilty. Jang was never charged with anything. Zhang and Chen are presumed innocent until a jury says otherwise.
Anyone reading these documents and concluding they know who the villain was is fooling themselves. This is what a collapsed marriage looks like on paper when both parties have lawyers and both are fighting over children. Mutual restraining orders are common in these cases and they establish that two people are at war, not which one started it.
What the file does establish is that the system had eyes on this family for a year. Prosecutors charged a case. Two judges issued protective orders. A criminal court ordered parenting classes. A family court reviewed the record last month and expanded a father's access to his children.
Everyone with authority looked at this situation and made a call. And on Saturday afternoon two 77-year-olds allegedly decided the calls were wrong and settled it themselves in a parking lot beside a playground.
That is the part that should hold your attention.
There is a version of this story where the child abuse charge becomes the point, and we understand the impulse. A man accused of hitting a six-year-old is not a sympathetic figure.
But the charge was a misdemeanor, he had not been convicted, and a judge with the full file in front of him had just expanded his visitation. If that decision was wrong, the remedy was an appeal, a motion, a call to a lawyer, or a report to the county.
The remedy was not a firearm in a park.
Once we start deciding that a defendant's pending charges make his killing explicable, we have given up the only thing that separates a courtroom from a mob. That principle protects the people we like and the people we do not, which is exactly why it is worth anything at all.
Three children lost their father on Saturday. Two of them will likely lose their grandparents to prison. Their mother lost a husband and both parents in a single afternoon.
Wednesday's arraignment is where this properly continues.
- Article Source:
The Post Millennial
- Photo:
