WOODLAND — A Woodland man has been ordered to stand trial on murder and gang charges in connection with a July 1 car chase and shootout that led to another man’s death.
Alejandro Loza Quezada is accused of firing the fatal shots that killed Geovanny Gomez, 35, who apparently did not know the alleged gunman but rather was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yolo Superior Court Judge David Reed found sufficient evidence to hold the 33-year-old Quezada on the charges Monday following a multi-day preliminary hearing that saw testimony from several reluctant witnesses.
One of them — Quezada’s girlfriend Alexandra Patterson — mostly wept when initially called to testify, later answering questions after receiving an immunity agreement from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
Another witness, Israel “Ray” Escobedo, who was a front-seat passenger in the vehicle Gomez drove that day and sustained a superficial gunshot wound in the shooting, admitted not wanting to come to court.
“I didn’t want to be called a snitch,” Escobedo said, adding that he feared retaliation for his testimony.
Most of the details surrounding the shooting came from Curtis Smith, Gomez’s roommate and the father of his girlfriend, who recalled a “jovial” day of drinking that suddenly ended in violence.
“I heard gunshots. I looked, and then I ducked,” Smith, who shared a house with Gomez and his parents, testified during the hearing’s first day on July 27. “I could see the gun pointed out the driver’s-side window.”
Smith said he, Gomez and Escobedo had spent the day bar-hopping and meeting up with friends. They were heading for home about 7:40 p.m. when they encountered a slower-moving Honda Accord in front of them in the area of College Street and Oak Avenue.
According to Smith, Gomez — driving Escobedo’s car — drove up to the driver’s side of the Honda, and Escobedo said something to the other driver that Smith couldn’t hear.
At that point, Gomez said, “Oh, I thought we knew you,” Smith recalled under questioning by prosecutor Kyle Hasapes. “They both kind of realized it wasn’t someone they knew or recognized.”
Smith said Escobedo exited the front passenger seat, and “I immediately heard gunshots, five to six.” Escobedo exclaimed he’d been shot — a grazing wound to his buttocks, he later testified — and he and Gomez debated whether to chase after the fleeing Honda.
“At that point I said, ‘I want out,’ ” Smith said. He got out of the car and began walking home as Gomez drove away, hearing squealing tires and more gunshots in the distance.
According to Woodland police, the suspect vehicle later was found abandoned on Fifth Street, the shooter and a passenger seen jumping through residential back yards to flee the area.
Smith had just arrived home when Gomez — now alone — pulled into the driveway and exited the car.
On his shirt, “he had what appeared to be a red bloodstain in the front, and a bloodstain in the back,” Smith said. He loaded Gomez into his own truck and drove him to Woodland Memorial Hospital, where Gomez later died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Asked if he recognized the gunman he saw that day in court, Smith indicated that Quezada resembled him, “but if you’re asking me if I’m 100 percent sure, I can’t do that,” he said.
Smith said he never saw Gomez with a weapon, either that day or anytime before, though he acknowledged under cross-examination by defense attorney Martha Sequeira that he never searched his roommate’s house for firearms.
“I cannot say for sure if he did (have them) or not,” Smith said.
Patterson, Quezada’s girlfriend, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination but did answer some questions, confirming that Quezada owned two semiautomatic firearms and had stashed gun magazines and the methamphetamine he sold at her apartment.
On the day of the shooting, Quezada had asked Patterson to buy bullets for him, but she refused, she said. He later left their shared apartment, returning that evening along with his brother, Ernesto “Neto” Loza.
Woodland police arrested Loza in connection with Gomez’s death on July 5, but the District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute him.
“He was dirty, because he had been working on his car,” Patterson said of Quezada, admitting that she told police at the time that he had been acting “a little funny” upon returning home.
A day or two later, Patterson saw a photo of Quezada’s vehicle in the local newspaper, which concerned her because “it was a really bad story” about the fatal shooting, she said.
Authorities have alleged that Quezada is a member of the Norteño street gang, the identification based upon his tattoos, prior law-enforcement contacts and photographs of him displaying gang hand signs and wearing red clothing.
Quezada has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, including a special-circumstance allegation of committing murder in conjunction with criminal street gang activity that could bring the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted.
It was the second of two homicides to occur within three days that week in Woodland. Police have not linked the deaths, and the first killing — of 31-year-old Arnulfo Bermudez Jr. — remains unsolved.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene