“Diversity is strength.”
Posted on 11/17/2007 8:13:57 AM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
OGDEN - It was a party to celebrate a wedding. It ended when gunfire rang out among a crowd of people.
"People were either dropping to the ground, running toward the house or just running to get out of there," said Keri Garcia, a bridesmaid who was wounded in the Aug. 5 drive-by shooting.
Two people died in the shooting.
On Friday the accused gunman, Riqo Mariano Perea, 19, sat through a preliminary hearing where witnesses described the hail of bullets.
At the end, a judge ordered Perea to stand trial on two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of attempted murder. The aggravated murder charges carry a possible death sentence.
Killed in the shooting were Sabrina Prieto, 22, and Rosendo Nevarez, 29. Two others were wounded.
It was a tragic ending to a day that had been reserved for the happiness of the Aug. 4 wedding at an Ogden church. After a reception later in the day, a crowd including the wedding party and well-wishers moved to a house in the 1700 East block of 1050 North and continued the celebration.
Richard Esquivel, a relative of the couple who were married that night, testified that at 12:30 a.m. he was outside the home and heard an argument coming from the street near where his cousin was standing. He thought it was playful at first, but then he heard cursing. He saw a hand holding a gun rise above an RV that blocked his view and two shots were fired into the air.
Esquivel ran to the front of the driveway, he said, to see if his cousin was all right. There, he saw a large sports-utility vehicle gradually moving west on the street.
"The guy was on the passenger side," Esquivel said, "then he leaned out the window and put the gun on the roof and just . . . " Esquivel's voice trailed off.
The man firing over the top of a GMC Denali as it was driven away was Perea, Weber County prosecutor Christopher Shaw said in his opening statement. Police found 10 shell casings from a .22-caliber pistol, he said.
Esquivel said he turned away after seeing two muzzle flashes. A bullet struck him in the back of the left shoulder and another grazed the tissue around his left hip.
Garcia, the bridesmaid, testified she was standing near the house when she heard different male voices at the street say the names of rival gangs. Someone fired a gun, she said, and she saw a group of people load into an SUV. She heard more gunfire and saw people trying to take cover.
Garcia said she saw Prieto collapse. Garcia felt a burning sensation in her back, reached behind and found her shirt torn and her back moist. When she brought her hand into view, she said, it was covered in blood. A bullet had hit Garcia in the middle of the lower back. The bullet is still in one of her lungs.
Nevarez, who was standing at the front of the driveway next to Esquivel, was shot in the back and likely was bent forward when he was hit, testified medical examiner Maureen Frikke. The bullet perforated Nevarez's aorta.
Prieto was hit in the upper right chest. The bullet perforated her aorta and pulmonary artery, Frikke said.
Neither Esquivel nor Garcia could identify the gunman. But a witness later Friday said Perea was the one who fired from the SUV.
Detectives determined Perea was a suspect in the case, Shaw said in his opening argument, and when they arrested him two days after the shooting, Perea confessed to firing over the top of the SUV.
The killings spurred what police believe was a series of retaliatory shootings. In one case, a man was shot seven times and dumped in an Ogden industrial area. He survived. Arrests in that case have not been made.
Prosecutors on Friday requested news photography not be allowed in the courtroom, saying it could further aggravate gang members.
After the shootings, the Ogden Police Department and the mayor announced they would increase the number of officers investigating gangs and take other steps to decrease gang violence.
Perea has another court appearance scheduled for Jan. 7, when prosecutors might discuss whether they will seek the death penalty.
ncarlisle@sltrib.com
Wait, wait; don't tell me...
Like deporting the d-bags...? Didn't think so.
Geeze, all those Hispanic names, almost makes me think of illegal aliens and their gang related crimes.
They’ve only been saying this for 20 years. There’s a large segment of Ogden society that has a layer of scum on their brains and the only way to clean it out is to put a bullet through it. I’m done with Ogden, I got sick of dealing with the lowlifes and taking my life in my hands every time I get gas or go shopping.
No doubt. My family is from Spain (I’m 4th generation American.) Do you know how hard it is to tell people my last name? And of course, I always get, “Gee, you don’t look Mexican.”
No, no. They're Jorge's guests.
“Diversity is strength.”
“Diversity is strength.”
Can’t imagine why they have such a bad name locally.
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