Trial Begins for Man Accused in Beach Gunfight

Nearly eight months after a gunfight erupted on a crowded Ventura beach and shocked many in the community, a teen-ager with Santa Paula gang affiliations went on trial Tuesday to face four criminal charges in connection with the ordeal.

A prosecutor told a Superior Court jury that 19-year-old Alejandro Garcia put hundreds of lives in danger--including those of young, frolicking children--when he blasted five shots toward members of the Bad Boyz gang near the south jetty at the San Buenaventura State Beach on Aug. 5.

Deputy Public Defender Todd R. Howeth acknowledged that his client fired the first shots, but said he was only responding to previous threats when he pulled out his .44 Magnum pistol in self-defense.

Although authorities initially investigated more than half a dozen suspects in the beach incident, they were only able to get charges in direct connection with the shooting to stick against Garcia.

Garcia’s 19-year-old cousin, John Sosa, was charged with accessory after the fact for trying to hide the gun Garcia used in the shooting after the suspects were stopped by police, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kim G. Gibbons. Sosa’s trial is pending.

Two of three men Garcia allegedly opened fired on were charged shortly after the shootout, but those charges were eventually dropped by a judge and a grand jury for lack of evidence.

The same grand jury charged Garcia with two felonies--assault with a firearm and grossly negligent shooting--and two misdemeanors--carrying a concealed firearm and carrying a loaded firearm in public.

Garcia, who authorities say is not a gang member, faces nearly 12 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.

Gibbons told jurors that more than 200 people had flocked to the beach the morning of the shooting, drawn there by warm weather and a bright sun, and not expecting to be trapped in the middle of a potentially deadly gun battle.

He said Garcia drove his Chevrolet Blazer to the beach with Sosa, another cousin and a fourth person--all affiliated with the Santa Paula-based Crazy Boyz gang, he said.

One of the Crazy Boyz spotted the Bad Boyz on the beach, Gibbons said, “and without hesitation (Garcia) pulled out a gun and blasted five shots.”

He said one bullet hit the sand three inches in front of an innocent 12-year-old boy, who was playing with his 9-year-old brother.

Gibbons told the jury that the Bad Boyz started to flee, but that at least one of them turned around and returned three shots.

“After those three shots, the defendant and his friends got back into the Blazer,” Gibbons said. “The defendant reloaded his gun before driving off.”

As Garcia drove down Spinnaker Drive, he took his gun out again and fired once more before being pulled over by a Ventura police officer, Gibbons said.

Gibbons also told the jury that no member of the Bad Boyz was charged because witnesses could not agree on which one fired the returned shots. Police found the gun that was used to return fire, he said, but it had been hidden in the sand, which effectively wiped off any fingerprints.

As for Garcia, Gibbons said self-defense is no excuse for his actions because, among other things, he provoked the shootout.

“The evidence will show that . . . the defendant pulled his gun out first and started shooting,” Gibbons said, dismissing the defense notion that Garcia only fired into the sand.

Howeth said Garcia and his friends had gone to the beach merely to fish.

After spotting the Bad Boyz, he said, Garcia shot into the sand because he had been victimized by those gang members previously.

Howeth said Garcia moved to Fresno to live with his grandparents in 1992 because of continual verbal and physical threats from the Bad Boyz.

He came back to Santa Paula the day before the beach shooting because his sister had given birth to a baby. He decided to go fishing Aug. 5, not expecting to face off with the Bad Boyz, Howeth said.

“It was shoot or be shot,” Howeth told the jury. “He was frightened.”

He called the trial “a case of a young teen-ager from Santa Paula who has lived under death threats from street thugs.”

“Alex Garcia has waited for this day,” Howeth said of the trial. “We are going to ask you for justice because the time has come for justice.”