The man facing two counts of premeditated attempted murder
stemming from a shooting at the Stoney Court Apartments in 2007
will stand trial for his alleged crimes.
The man facing two counts of premeditated attempted murder stemming from a shooting at the Stoney Court Apartments in 2007 will stand trial for his alleged crimes.
What began as a seemingly simple gang strike with a man opening fire into a car full of people has been complicated by uncertain identities, changing stories, gang ties and witnesses who don’t speak English.
Attorneys wrapped up Tomas Martinez Romero’s two-day preliminary hearing before in a courtroom that was empty except for two Gilroy police officers, the defendant, Superior Court Judge Hector Ramon and court staff. Shackles clinking as he shifted in his seat, Martinez Romero bent his head close to a Spanish-language translator for the entirety of the proceedings.
The shooting occurred the evening of March 27, 2007, when Martinez Romero walked up to a white Toyota occupied by five males at the Stoney Court Apartments – located just south of San Ysidro Park and west of U.S. 101 in east Gilroy – and fired almost 10 rounds, police said. One of the occupants of the shot-up car was the brother of one of Martinez Romero’s acquaintances, who happened to be sitting in a nearby car – an older model brown Cadillac – that Martinez Romero had just gotten out of and was about to flee in.
According to police reports and testimony given by Gilroy police officer Eustaquio Rodriguez, the two brothers had an argument in the parking lot minutes before the shooting occurred. After the argument – but before the shooting – the brothers retreated to their respective cars. According to Rodriguez, who interviewed both brothers, the brown Cadillac then began to leave the apartment’s parking lot before Martinez Romero told the driver to stop, saying he had to urinate. Martinez Romero then got out of the car and disappeared. While Martinez Romero was gone, gunshots rang out and Martinez Romero hurried back to the car, telling the driver to step on it because he had heard gunshots.
Two of the Toyota’s occupants – the brother of Martinez Romero’s acquaintance and a boy who was 14 at the time of the shooting – were wounded.
During a tedious cross examination by Martinez Romero’s defense attorney, Steven Woodson, Rodriguez recounted the lengthy interview he conducted with the brother who was in the vehicle with Martinez Romero.
Rodriguez testified that the brother in the Cadillac identified Martinez Romero as the shooter.
But Woodson aimed to emphasize the nature of Rodriguez’s interrogation of the witness.
“It’s really a question of whether the ID was reliable or whether it was the product of police interrogation,” Woodson said. “I think it’s important not just that the witness made an identification but what led up to the witness making that identification.”
According to the 100-page transcript of the interview Rodriguez conducted with the brother in the Cadillac, the brother said he was riding in the same car as Martinez Romero but denied several times knowing who shot into the white car.
“In reality, I don’t know who shot my brother,” the brother in the Cadillac said, according to the transcript. “In reality, I don’t know nothing.”
Woodson questioned the accuracy of the brother’s identification given the lengthy interview and what appeared to be pressure from police officers.
“He was hammered,” Woodson said of the brother interviewed by Rodriguez. “He denied it a dozen times. But there comes a point where a witness doesn’t want to get into trouble himself and it looked like it was heading in that direction.”
Woodson previously pointed out the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, an opinion Deputy District Attorney Daniel Carr said he did not share.
“He’s going to try to put into the minds of the people that eyewitness testimony is not reliable, and that’s not the case,” Carr said of the defense attorney. “It is very reliable.”
Carr said several of the witnesses had seen or knew Martinez Romero before the shooting, which lent credence to their identification of him, Carr said.
Earlier in the preliminary hearing, two of the victims – who were both younger than 18 at the time of the shooting – identified Martinez Romero as the shooter.
Based on the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, Ramon held Martinez Romero over for trial, Carr said. His arraignment is scheduled for Monday, when he will enter a plea of not guilty, Woodson said.
