January killing brings accused’s second murder charge
A former inmate/resident of Camp Kilpatrick, a juvenile detention and rehabilitation center located in Malibu, is now charged with murder — for the second time.
Denmonne Lee, now 22, was arrested in April and charged as an accomplice in the January murder of 28-year-old Eric Ruffins near Compton. In both cases, Lee was not charged as the shooter of the victims, but is accused of supplying the weapon in the first case and aiding and abetting in the latest.
Lee entered the juvenile justice system in Los Angeles County in 2018 at age 16. He helped plan a gas station robbery in Lancaster where he knew the victim, former Marine John Ruh. But the robbery didn’t go as planned. Lee created a distraction asking Ruh for a cigarette so his accomplice could brandish a gun and force Ruh to empty the cash register. Instead, the accomplice, Deonta “Fatboy” Johnson, shot the former Marine three times, killing him. According to court testimony and detectives, Lee, who provided the weapon, walked away from the murder smiling and told his girlfriend his gun “had a body on it.”
After Lee was arrested for murder, it took two years for his case to wind through the courts.
The attorney for Ruh’s widow wanted Lee’s case tried in adult court, citing that Lee obtained a cellphone in juvenile custody and used the phone to threaten to shoot his ex-girlfriend. But the case under Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon was tried in juvenile court. The DA’s office said Lee was not the shooter and had no previous record of violence. Standards to try juveniles as adults in California were raised in 2022. Prosecutors must now prove “by clear and convincing evidence” that youths cannot be rehabilitated in a juvenile detention facility.
Lee was convicted as a juvenile and sent to the Barry J. Nidorfdetention center in Sylmar. That center was deemed unfit by state regulators and others who called its living conditions “wretched.” Still, Lee was said to have done well in the high-security compound.
Last year, he was transferred to Camp Kilpatrick, considered a less restrictive step-down facility. Camp Kilpatrick is said to house lower-risk offenders in a more therapeutic rather than punitive setting. Its population is roughly 50 inmate/residents. But two years ago, the LA County Board of Supervisors was tasked with closing the Sylmar facility and transferring hundreds of violent offenders to Kilpatrick. The Las Virgenes-Malibu Council of Governments (LVMCOG) unanimously opposed the county’s plan. The transfer of the first 150 inmates to Malibu was eventually scrapped when required security upgrades, additional bunks, and other logistics weren’t met.
After living a few months at Camp Kilpatrick, Lee was eventually released to a halfway house in Los Angeles. At the time, Ruh’s widow supported that decision. Lee had served five years. Until recently, he even had a part-time job and was taking community college courses. But, Lee was arrested again as an accomplice in the Ruffins murder.
Ruh’s widow, Michelle Brace, and others are now questioning Gascon’s policies and claim if Lee had been tried as an adult, he would not have had the freedom to commit another crime.
Malibu City Council member Paul Grisanti is now the Malibu representative on the LVMCOG. Grisanti was against housing violent offenders in Malibu then and now.
“The City of Malibu and the COG, or Council of Governments, has been consistent in opposing the use of low-security Campus Kilpatrick to house inmates convicted of violent crimes,” he said. “Our county’s experiment with ‘justice’ that undercharges violent crimes and releases perpetrators back onto the street where they victimize those they come in contact with, is a failure. I’m hoping that the voters of Los Angeles County will support our law enforcement and elect a new district attorney in November, who will protect the hard-working residents of LA County.”
There are many other opinions however, including in law enforcement, about the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. Theories often claim the human brain is not fully formed until age 25 so rehabilitation would be effective in youth offenders. Proponents of rehabilitation over punishment claim rehabilitation promotes long-term behavioral change, reduces recidivism, addresses underlying causes, is a more humane approach, has economic benefits, and enhances public safety.
Brace has second thoughts and is quoted as saying, “Denmonne, you were given a gift and you squandered that gift.”
Grisanti questioned, “When did law and order become so unpopular?”