Opinion ID: 844220
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Robbery and murder at Lucky Supermarket

Text: Around 11:00 a.m. on December 15, 1988, an armored car driven by Howard Sands stopped near the front entrance of the Lucky Supermarket on Lakewood Boulevard in Bellflower. Since the store‟s opening, just eight days 3 before, the armored car had arrived every day around the same time. Patrick Rooney, Sands‟s partner, got out of the armored car and entered the store to make a delivery and a pickup. Michael Fiamengo, the assistant store manager, met Rooney at the store‟s safe. Rooney delivered payroll checks and cash, receiving in exchange $64,184 in cash and around $30,000 in checks, which he put in a canvas bag. As he walked back through the store to the front entrance, Rooney carried the canvas bag in his left hand and his gun, held by his side and pointing down, in his right hand. As Rooney was about to exit the store, a man identified as defendant at trial by 12 witnesses rushed up behind Rooney, put his left arm around Rooney‟s neck, and shoved Rooney‟s head into the glass door, shattering it. At the same time, defendant pointed a gun, held in his right hand, at the right side of Rooney‟s head and fired one shot, killing Rooney. After grabbing the canvas bag and Rooney‟s gun with his left hand, defendant then ran back through the store to the warehouse area. As he ran through the store, defendant shouted: “Get the fuck out of my way. Everybody get the fuck out of my way.” When he reached the warehouse area, defendant pointed his gun at Lawrence Diehl, a store employee. Defendant ran outside through the receiving doors and across the street to the corner of Palm Street and Virginia Avenue, where he stopped and waited. A van pulled up, defendant got in, and the van drove off. At 11:35 a.m. the same day, in an apartment complex parking lot on Palm Street in Bellflower, Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Ronald Dietrich found a van matching the description of the one used in the robbery. The engine was running, but no one was in or around the van. The van had been stolen six days earlier after its owner had parked it on a street in the City of Rancho Cucamonga. A set of keys that the owner had left in the van was found next to Rooney‟s body 4 at the entrance to the Lucky Supermarket. After determining that the van had been stolen, Sergeant Dietrich impounded it. The van and its contents, including a plastic container lid and a tabloid newspaper, were examined for fingerprints by Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Ronald George. He found and photographed five fingerprints that he determined were made by defendant. Two of the fingerprints were on the container lid; the other three were on the tabloid newspaper. An autopsy revealed that Patrick Rooney died of a gunshot wound to the head, the bullet entering through the right temple. When it was fired, the gun was in loose contact with Rooney‟s temple. Janet Delaguila, a Lucky Supermarket employee, was one of the witnesses who identified defendant at trial as the perpetrator of the robbery and murder of Patrick Rooney. She testified that two days before those crimes, on December 13, 1988, she had seen defendant in the Lucky Supermarket and had recognized him as a regular customer of Courtesy Cleaners, a dry cleaning store in Compton, where she had previously worked. During the two years she had worked at Courtesy Cleaners, she had seen defendant approximately three times each week. On December 13, defendant had been in the company of a woman, and they were pushing a shopping cart. When she next saw defendant, on December 15, 1988, he was running through the Lucky Supermarket carrying two guns, one in each hand, and a bag. On December 15, 1988, about an hour after the murder, a police officer took her to the dry cleaning store in Compton to search for a record with defendant‟s name. She remembered only that defendant‟s last name started with the letter “E.” They looked at several months of receipts but did not find anything helpful. 5