Opinion ID: 844220
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Robbery and assault at Boys Market

Text: Around 9:45 a.m. on October 31, 1988, an armored car driven by a man named Ramirez3 stopped in the parking lot of the Boys Market on North La Brea Avenue, in Inglewood, Los Angeles County. Joseph Swal, Ramirez‟s partner, got out to retrieve a shopping cart, which Ramirez then loaded with a box of coins and a canvas bag full of currency. Pushing the cart, Swal entered the store and walked to the courtesy booth, where he delivered the coins and currency, receiving in exchange some clear plastic bags containing currency and coins. Swal placed the plastic bags in the canvas bag, which he put in the shopping cart. He walked toward the store exit, where he removed the canvas bag from the shopping cart. As he was about to leave the store, Swal heard a mumbled voice, but he did not understand what was being said. Continuing to walk, he heard the voice again and felt a gun pressed against his right temple. The person holding the gun, who was identified at trial by a witness as defendant, said, “Drop it, drop it, drop the bag.” Swal dropped the bag. Defendant said, “Get down, get down on the floor, get down.” As Swal was lying on the floor, defendant pulled Swal‟s revolver from its holster, picked up the canvas money bag, and started running toward the back of the store. As he was running, defendant encountered a store employee, Pierre Jacobs, near the end of one of the store‟s aisles. Defendant told Jacobs to “get 3 The record does not indicate the given name of Ramirez, who did not testify. 2 back,” and Jacobs immediately dropped to the floor. As Jacobs was lying on the floor, he twice heard a sound he recognized as a gun‟s trigger being pulled, but no gun fired. Holding a gun in each hand, and with the money bag tucked under his arm, defendant ran through the interior double doors leading into the store‟s warehouse area. Placing one gun against the right temple of Ardis Irvine, a store employee, defendant said, “Motherfucker, open the door now or I‟m going to blow your damn head off.” Irvine began rolling up the exterior warehouse door, but the door stuck. Defendant repeated his threat, pressed the gun harder against Irvine‟s head, and pulled back the hammer. When the door opened, defendant ran outside, jumped off the loading dock, and ran off. The store‟s manager, Wilson Colon, saw defendant run to a blue van waiting on Market Street. The van drove off after defendant entered on the passenger side. Colon reported the van‟s description and license number to the police. Inglewood Police Officer Randy Goodro was driving a patrol car on the morning of October 31, 1988, when he received information about a robbery at a Boys Market on La Brea in Inglewood. The information included a vehicle description and license number. Around 10:30 a.m., Officer Goodro found a van matching the description in a carport behind an apartment building on North Market Street. The van, which had been reported stolen that day, was unoccupied and unlocked. After being examined for fingerprints, the van was impounded and towed.