Opinion ID: 2639408
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Offenses against Salgado and Figueroa

Text: On April 10, 1987, Rochelle Stewart lived on Hoover Street next door to Tom's Liquor Store. Around 1:00 a.m. that night, she left that store and was walking south on Hoover toward her house when she noticed two men whom she described as Mexican and whom she did not know (later identified as Manuel Serrano Figueroa and Leopoldo Magania Salgado) in a small blue car. They asked her to get in the car with them, but she refused. Todd Lavera, whom she knew as Buster, approached from behind and asked what she was doing talking to the Mexicans. Two other men walked up behind her; one was short, about five feet four inches, and the other about five feet 11 inches or about the same height as Lavera. The short man, whom she had seen before but whose name she did not know, went up to the blue car, stuck a gun in the driver's window and said, Give me the money. As the driver (Figueroa) started to roll up the window, the short man fired four shots from what appeared to Stewart to be a small .22- or .25-caliber gun, breaking the window on the driver's side. The Mexican man on the passenger side (Salgado) got out of the car, whereupon the short man fired three more shots at him. The driver pulled out of the driveway. As Lavera stood near Stewart, the other tall man took the gun from the short man and fired two more shots at the passenger. Lavera and the two unknown men then ran to an alley connecting Hoover Street and 73d Street. Salgado's wounds proved fatal. In speaking with the police later that night, Stewart initially told them she didn't know who did what, but later identified Lavera, Moore and defendant in separate photo lineups. With respect to defendant's photo, she told the police, That kind of look [ sic ] like the last person that shot the gun. At the preliminary hearing in this case, Stewart identified Lavera, but testified she did not see the other two men in the courtroom. At trial, she acknowledged she had in fact recognized the other two men at the preliminary hearing, but had been too fearful to identify them because she was then still living in the neighborhood. At Lavera's separate trial, Stewart had identified Moore as the first shooter when he was brought out for her to see, and she testified Lavera was the man who stood beside her during the crime, but she did not recognize defendant as being the second shooter when he was brought out. At defendant's trial, Stewart denied seeing the second shooter anywhere in the courtroom and denied that defendant looked anything like the photograph she had identified as being the second shooter. She also denied ever telling the prosecutor and her investigator that she was afraid to testify. Vivian Bivians, Todd Lavera's sister, testified she had long known defendant and Andre Moore, and both men were friends of her brother. On the night of the offenses, defendant and Moore were visiting with Lavera at the back of the house where she and Lavera lived with their mother. The house was located about a block from Tom's Liquor Store. At one point their mother asked Lavera to go to Tom's Liquor Store, get a broom and come right back home with it. Lavera left to go to the store, closely followed by Moore and defendant. Ten to 15 minutes later, Bivians heard two or more gunshots and, thinking Lavera might have been shot, ran to the corner. There she saw defendant walking down Hoover Street with four or five girls. She asked defendant where Lavera was; he replied he did not know. An hour later, she saw Lavera in a police car. Neither Lavera, Moore or defendant ever returned to her house with the broom or any explanation of what had happened. Manuel Figueroa testified at the preliminary hearing. As he had died of natural causes by the time of trial, his former testimony was read into evidence. Figueroa testified that around 1:15 a.m. on April 10, 1987, he and Salgado were sitting in Figueroa's car at Tom's Liquor Store when a young Black woman walked by. Figueroa and Salgado had been drinking at a club, and Salgado began to flirt with the woman. Three Black men, whose ages he estimated as 20 to 22 years, walked up behind the woman and then approached his car. One of the men walked up to his open window, said, I'm going to kill you, and took out his gun. The other two men lined up behind the man with the gun, who fired four shots. The second and third shots grazed the back of his head and neck as he ducked forward; the fourth shot hit him behind his right ear. After the fourth shot was fired, Salgado got out of the car. Figueroa unsuccessfully tried to stop him. Figueroa then pulled out of the lot and drove away. He identified Moore as the shooter and Lavera and defendant as the two men lined up behind Moore. When Figueroa first spoke with the police about the crime, he did not want to cooperate because he was afraid of reprisal. He therefore told the police he could not identify the three attackers and could only describe them as being young and Black. By the time of the preliminary hearing, however, his fear had diminished because he had moved to a new residence, having been paid $1,000 as part of a relocation effort by the district attorney's office. Officer Arthur Duran of the Los Angeles Police Department was on patrol with his partner in a marked police car during the early morning hours of April 10, 1987. As he reached 73d Street and Vermont Avenue, a radio broadcast informed him that a. shooting had occurred at Tom's Liquor Store and that the suspects, three Black men, were running westbound on 73d Street. Duran stopped the patrol car at 73d and Florence and observed three Black males walking westbound on the sidewalk, two walking together and a third some 20 or 30 feet behind the others. When the car's headlights shone on them, the three men ran into the yards of the residences at 936 and 932 West 73d Street. A canine unit responded to the residence toward which Duran had seen the first two suspects flee; Lavera was found hiding at the rear of that location. The other two suspects were not found. Lavera underwent a gunshot residue test with negative results. Later that day, Jose Alvarado was cleaning his yard at 940 West 73d Street, across from Tom's Liquor Store, when he found a gun missing its cylinder. He gave it to his mother-in-law, who gave it to the police. During the autopsy of Salgado, the coroner, Dr. Susan Selzer, retrieved a .22-caliber slug from Salgado's chest. The slug was compared with the gun found in Alvarado's yard. [1] Detective Donald Richards testified that, depending on the brand of revolver and the cylinder used, a .22-caliber revolver could fire between five and nine shots. In his experience, a nail could be used as well as a pin to make the revolver operable.