Holding a gun with both hands, an angry Raul Gomez-Garcia repeatedly fired the weapon in the direction of two Denver detectives providing security at his social hall, Ruben Huizar-Gonzales told a jury today.
Huizar-Gonzales, who has owned the Salon Ocampo social hall since 2000, said he was standing 10 feet from Gomez-Garcia when the 21-year-old began firing.
Because of angled hallways in the building, he saw Gomez-Garcia and smoke from the weapon, but was unable to see that the two officers had been hit.
Donald “Donnie” Young died in the early morning shooting on May 8, 2005. Jack Bishop survived.
Huizar-Gonzales said he spoke directly to the shooter.
“I said, ‘What’s going on?’,” Huizar-Gonzales testified. “I just looked at his face. After I said ‘What’s going on?’ he began running.”
Asked by prosecutor Bruce Levin what type of expression Gomez-Garcia had on his face as he fired, Huizar-Gonzales said: “He was angry.”
Although Gomez-Garcia’s lawyers contend that Gomez-Garcia had been in the invitation-only baptismal party earlier, Huizar-Gonzales said he had not seen him prior to the shooting about 1 a.m.
The Salon Ocampo owner had been at his hall for about seven hours prior to the shooting.
He said that he chased Gomez-Garcia out of the hall, through a parking lot and a gate but lost him as he disappeared between a house and a garage.
He said that Gomez-Garcia was running “very fast.”
During the pursuit, immediately outside the front door of the hall, he said the assailant bumped into a man.
Huizar-Gonzales said he had used Young for security almost since the time he bought the hall.
“I knew him fairly well,” he said.
After the shooting, Gomez-Garcia fled to Mexico and was arrested by Mexican authorities on June 4, 2005. He was returned to Denver six months later. He is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Young and attempted first-degree murder of Bishop.
The defense claims that although Gomez-Garcia fired the shots, he didn’t mean to kill the officers, only scare them. But prosecutors claim that Gomez-Garcia told Mexican authorities when he was arrested that he hoped he had killed the “big one” (Young).
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
