Opinion ID: 774017
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Witnesses at Trial

Text: 5 Elfren Torres and his fiancee, Carolyn Modica, were walking down Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn at about 6 p.m. on February 12, 1988, when Modica noticed a light-colored or white car double-parked in front of a psychoanalyst's office, and observed that the passenger (whom she later identified as Leka) was staring at her and joking with the driver (amused, she assumed, because her face was bandaged following surgery). Trial transcript (Tr.) at 377, 379-81. She and Torres walked past the car, and continued at a slow pace for approximately five car lengths when they heard shooting. The pair dived behind a parked car. Tr. at 463, 383. 6 Modica took cover throughout the shooting; but Torres, over his fiancee's sensible objection, lifted his head twice to see what was going on. On his first look, he saw an extended arm shooting a gun from the front passenger window of a light-colored car. On his second look, he saw a man--whom he later identified as Leka--standing in the street, shooting downward. When the shooting ended, Torres and Modica emerged from cover; the light-colored car was gone and the victim was bleeding in the street.