People v. Hernandez CA6

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Facts of the Offense Defendant and his girlfriend, Mercedes Ruiz, lived at the Santa Rita Apartments complex in Salinas. The complex consisted of several two-story buildings separated by parking areas. Defendant and Ruiz lived in Apartment 182, on the second floor of a building in the center of the complex. Melissa Ceballos and her two children lived in Apartment 32 on the second floor of a building on the separate, north side of the complex. Ricky, the father of Ceballos’ two children, sometimes stayed at Apartment 32. Shortly after midnight on September 18, 2011, an anonymous person called 911 and reported that a bald, “Mexican male” with a white shirt was engaged in a “domestic dispute” with a woman at the apartment complex. The caller said the man had pointed a silver gun at the woman and told her to leave. The woman was yelling and appeared intoxicated. The caller was unsure of the apartment number where the dispute was located, but he said it was “probably upstairs, 116, maybe.” The caller refused to give his own location. Police went to Apartment 116 of the complex but found nothing unusual. While they were still at the complex,…