WOODLAND — A Davis teen has been ordered to stand trial on charges of exposing himself to and attempting to rob several women around North Davis’ Covell Park, as well as brandishing a replica firearm at his arresting officer.
Andres Navarro, 19, has been in custody since July 3, when officers conducting a late-night sting operation on the greenbelt east of Catalina Drive allegedly caught him engaging in lewd behavior, similar to acts that had been reported by multiple women since mid-April. He has pleaded not guilty.
Yolo Superior Court Judge Daniel Maguire’s ruling that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to support the charges came after the conclusion of a preliminary hearing in the case Monday morning.
Davis police officers testified during the hearing, which began Friday, that a man matching Navarro’s description exposed himself to young women near the Davis Little League fields, in Covell Park and at the Suntree Apartments on F Street, where Navarro was living at the time.
Investigators believe Navarro also attempted to steal a woman’s keys from her pocket while following her on his bike on the night of June 9, then tried to grab another woman’s cell phone about an hour later, a couple of blocks away.
When one of the indecent-exposure victims identified Navarro as a possible suspect, police set up the July sting operation in Covell Park in which an undercover female officer posed as someone exercising on the greenbelt. Detective Ryan Bellamy said Navarro “definitely took notice of her,” dropping his bike in some nearby bushes and walking toward her with his hands in his pants.
Bellamy said he confronted Navarro as he biked away from the scene.
“He very quickly raised his hand up to my face,” Bellamy recalled under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Michael Vroman. “At that point, I could see he had a gun in his hand and it was pointed at my face,” roughly six to eight inches away.
The officer said he swatted the gun away and punched Navarro, and the two fell to the ground in a scuffle during which both Navarro’s gun and Bellamy’s service weapon came loose.
Asked why he didn’t pull his own weapon and fire when threatened, Bellamy said, “Because I was so close to him that my first instinct was to push the gun out of my face.”
After Navarro’s arrest, police determined Navarro’s weapon was an Airsoft BB gun, though it had no colored tip or other markings to distinguish it from a semiautomatic handgun, Detective Justin Infante testified.
While some of the victims initially told police they were uncertain whether they could identify the suspect if they saw him again, at least three picked Navarro out of a photo lineup during follow-up interviews, Infante said.
The detective acknowledged that investigators did not test Navarro’s BB gun to determine whether it was operational at the time it was brandished, a point Deputy Public Defender Joseph Gocke argued in seeking a dismissal of the assault charge.
Gocke also disputed his client’s involvement in the attempted cell-phone robbery, as the victim could not describe the suspect, and an indecent exposure count in which he said the victim may have been influenced by her neighbors to identify Navarro as the perpetrator.
Maguire allowed the charges to stand, saying those issues could be raised before a jury when the case proceeds to trial.
Navarro is due back in court Nov. 17 for arraignment and setting of a trial date.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene