Jury duty, chapter 3

Chato puts the gun to the driver's door of the Bronco and fires it. The bullet goes through the door and into Boo's upper left calf. Chato's friends reach in and yank off Boo's gold chains. Chato puts the gun to Boo's head and says, "You know where the next one's going, get out the car!." Boo gets out of the car and Chato's buddies push Boo to the ground, punching and kicking him. Chato gets into the Bronco and yells, "Where are the keys?" Boo says "Fuck you!" Chato finds the keys on the floor and starts the Bronco, his friends get in the 2 other cars. They drive away and as Chato drives by Boo he yells, "Don't snitch!" He and his amigos turn right, out of the cul de sac, and drive toward the freeway.

One hour previous to the car jacking, Sheila Revee Luna was chillin' in the small camper she often parked in the cul de sac in the driveway of the concrete business she worked at. Her boss would let her park there and take her breaks and lunch in the camper. Ms Luna's boyfriend had stopped by to visit her in the camper and he had mentioned that he saw Boo parked in his Bronco at the end of the cul de sac. Ms Luna had partied with Boo one night and Boo and her boss had installed a new floor in her camper. She knew Boo to sleep in his car in the cul de sac pretty regularly. She did not know him by his real name, she only knew his nickname.

Some time after her boyfriend had told her of Boo's presence she heard yelling and angry voices. The she heard a pop. Then came a knock at her camper door and Boo's voice saying, "Let me in, I've been shot." She did not want to let him in, but she knew him and he convinced her that the shooters had left. She let him in and he called 911 on her cell phone. After that he was on hold for 20 minutes before the CHP forwarded the call to the Oakland Police Dept, hereafter referred to as OPD. In the call Boo said, I've just been car jacked and shot. It was a guy named Chata, (the name differed from the actual nickname, but it was close) He's Hispanic, he lives on Santa Rita St. There were 3 of them, they got out of a silver Toyota and a red Honda. They were all Hispanic. One of them had bad teeth, like a heroin addict. They took everything I own. They took my gold chains. The took my Green Bronco with $4,000 rims. They shot me in the leg.

The police arrived and one of the officers found a bullet casing at the end of the cul de sac where Boo had been parked. He picked it up for evidence. The EMT's had arrived and were working on Boo. They drove him to Highland Hospital. The OPD officer who had responded to the scene went to the hospital to take Boo's statement. She wrote that he said the gun used was a 35 caliber revolver, black in color, with a nickle plated handle. He repeated the information he had given to the 911 dispatcher. They kept him overnight at the hospital. An OPD officer took pictures of Boo as he slept and close ups of the bullet wound. The doctors told Boo the bullet would work its way out of his leg in time and that removing it would cause more damage. He left the next day and according to his testimony he stayed with various family members, moving from house to house for safety' sake.

He said that his family and friends have suffered retaliation from Chato's friends. Boo was evicted from an apartment recently because his front window kept getting smashed. When the defense attorney grilled him about the "supposed acts of vandalism and retaliation" and demanded to know where and when these incidents occurred, Boo declined for reasons of safety. The defendant Chato let out the most heinous laugh at that point. It was a defining moment.

The defense attorney, pit bull like, again tried to demand that he give up that information. He asked Boo why he could not see his kids (at one point he told of his depression at being separated from his kids), "Where do your kids live?" he asked. "Aren't you being ridiculous to say that they might be victims of retaliation? Tell us about these so-called acts that have been perpetrated against your family." Then Boo looked at the defense attorney and said, "You don't really want me to tell you." The inference was that it would make Chato look bad. The defense attorney got a funny look on his face as he realized, belatedly, how stupid the request was and how bad his client would appear if Boo answered his questions. That was another defining moment.

To be continued.....