John Salgado, a 36-year-old convicted robber and gangbanger, is finally on trial for multiple felonies related to an alleged shooting attack on a Santa Ana business owner and his son that occurred in 2017.
The OCDA prosecutor is alleging that Salgado tried to shoot Jorge Lopez, a Santa Ana auto body shop owner, and his then-16-year-old son about 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2017, at 1909 W. Myrtle St.
Predictably Salgado’s defense attorney says the police arrested the wrong guy.
The shooting occurred when Jorge Lopez went to pick up his son, Harold, from his girlfriend’s house. The son was driving the family’s Mini-Cooper when they double-parked.
Salgado allegedly approached the father and son in their parked vehicle and asked “Where are you from?” That is a question gangbangers will ask if they see a stranger and if they don’t like the answer it usually does not end well.
Harold Lopez knew that the question was not a good one so he hit the gas and tried to flee the scene. The prosecutor said that three bullets struck the rear window of the car.
So was Salgado at the scene or not? The prosecutors appear to have a tight case with this evidence:
- Salgado was wearing a GPS device because he was on parole. He must have forgot he had it on. The GPS device records show Salgado was at the scene of the shooting.
- Jorge and Harold Lopez both picked Salgado out of a photo lineup after police added a tattoo for all of the suspects in the mug shots. Jorge Lopez had told the police that he remembered that his attacker had a facial tattoo under his eye.
- Salgado was also picked out of a photo lineup by Harold’s mom, who saw him run away from the scene.
- To make matters worse for Salgado he fled when police officers tried to pull him over on Jan. 24, 2017. During that police pursuit Salgado also allegedly tossed a gun out of the car’s window. That gun, according to the police, is the one he used in the Lopez shooting.
Salgado’s defense attorney, Fred Fascenelli, accused the police of something called “confirmation bias,
which is defined as the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values by Wikepedia. Fascenelli also said that the police failed to ask the victims what sort of gang sign their attacker used before he opened fire. He also claimed that Salgado allegedly had a “full head of hair” at the time of the shooting. But the attorney says that Salgado usually does not have much hair.
Fascenelli claims that his client is “guilty of having a firearm and being a gang member in possession of a firearm,” but he’s innocent of all the other charges.
Salgado is looking at two counts each of attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and single counts each of carrying a loaded firearm in public, shooting at a vehicle, and a prohibited person owning ammunition and two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, all felonies. He also faces sentencing enhancements for the discharge of a firearm, attempted premeditated murder, and gang activity.
Salgado was previously sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in January of 2007 to robbery and assault with a deadly weapon and admitted a sentencing enhancement for gang activity.
