RIPON - A 16-year-old gang member has been sentenced to five years and four months in juvenile detention after pleading guilty to assault with a deadly weapon in a stabbing in August that left him with a broken hand.

The sentence was handed down last Wednesday in San Joaquin County Juvenile Court in French Camp.

Ripon Police Lt. Ed Ormonde said the youth had been arrested on August 1 after officers responded to a report of a man down in the roadway at Stockton Avenue near Idaho Street.

During their investigation police learned that another subject had been admitted to a Manteca area hospital with stab wounds and a third was being treated at a Modesto area hospital for a broken hand.

Officers canvassed the neighborhood and learned the injuries had occurred during a gang fight at Heritage Lane and Idaho Street where two rival gangs reportedly began to exchange words after a group of juveniles began yelling gang slurs.  

Ormonde said the verbal exchange escalated with the groups moving into the intersection of North Stockton Avenue and Idaho Street where two subjects were stabbed with a metal object and the two others received lacerations when they were struck with beer bottles.

The 16-year-old Ripon youth, who suffered the broken hand, was jailed on two counts of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit a crime and participation in a criminal street and fighting in a public place.