Jury Duty, Chapter 4

The carjacking happened on March 10. 5 days later an OPD officer testified that he was driving in East Oakland. He saw a red Honda stopped at a light, with its wheels canted to turn right, but when the driver of the red car saw the officer in his rear view mirror he turned left instead. The officer became suspicious and put the car's licence # into the system. He was waiting a long time for the info to come back and he followed the suspect at a discreet distance. The information came in that the car was stolen and the officer turned on his lights and told the suspect to pull over. He told the suspect, Mr Navarro, to exit the car. The suspect complied but told the officer not to point the gun at the car because his daughter was inside.

So Mr Navarro goes to Santa Rita jail for car theft. Around the same time, Ms Luna called Boo and told him she and her boyfriend had seen his car near where he had been car jacked, in a place commonly used to abandon stolen and stripped vehicles. She tells him it is sans tires, up on blocks and is full of trash. This is unusual she testifies, because although the Bronco body itself was not in good condition, Boo kept it clean and neat.

Boo buys tires and goes to pick the car up, but he does not have keys to get into it and decides to wait until later to try and hot wire it. He does not call the police because, as he put it, he had decided to get Chato himself. "I wanted to hurt him," he said. "I wanted to kill him."

On March 17, a litter control officer who is in charge of the area of Northeast Oakland sees the Bronco and tags it. It was a Friday and she knew the car was not going anywhere, she testified. She did notice there was a lot of trash inside the car but she does not remember seeing a bullet hole. On Monday, the 20th, the car was towed.

Some months later Boo is also arrested and sent to Santa Rita jail. One morning he is in line waiting to get on the County bus to go to his court hearing, and wonder of wonders, Boo sees Chato in line to get on a different bus from the one he is in line for. He recognizes him, but he only knows him by the name Chato, so he waits to hear Chato's prisoner number and his name as he is called to get on the bus. After he hears the name he gets the attention of a deputy known as the "back hall deputy" because he works in the back halls of the prison. The deputy testified that Mr Hendrickson limped over to him and told him that he had just seen the man who had car jacked and shot him. The deputy realized the serious trouble Mr Hendrickson would be in if he was seen to be a snitch so he took Mr Hendrickson down to a private area. The D.A. emphazized that a known snitch is dead meat and it is the lowest thing you can be in jail. Anyone who snitches has violated the G-code and will be retaliated against.

Boo told the deputy Chato's real name, as he had heard him called by a deputy, his prisoner #, and also described him as a Hispanic male with weird ears. The deputy called OPD and talked to a Sgt Bosso, who confirmed that he had a report on file of the crime described by the deputy. The back hall deputy pulled up a series of mugshots and showed them to Mr Hendrickson, who picked out the pic of Mr Navarro as the person who had car jacked him. Sgt Bosso drove to Santa Rita jail and interviewed Boo and then he interviewed Chato. In the interview, Chato said that he lived on Santa Rita street.

While Boo was in jail, the bullet began to work its way out of his leg causing severe pain. He was admitted to the prison clinic where they decided to remove the bullet. A deputy testified that he was called to come to the prison clinic and watch the removal of the bullet and to book the bullet into evidence. The bullet was removed and the Sgt took in, put it in a plastic evidence bag and called Sgt Bosso who went to the jail to retrieve it.

To be continued......