People v. Vela CA2/3

BACKGROUND

Viewed in accordance with the usual rule of appellate review (People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206), the evidence established the following. On February 28, 2008, Duwayne Bennett and co-workers Ryan Comstock and Shaun Lucy went for drinks after work at Brennan’s Pub in Marina Del Rey. Vela and a friend arrived at Brennan’s on skateboards at about 1:00 a.m. When one of the bar’s bouncers told Vela skateboards were not allowed inside because they could be used as weapons, Vela said: “I have better weapons on me than that.” Vela was allowed inside without his skateboard just to look around. Comstock, who happened to be walking out of the bar at that moment, bumped into him. Vela got mad and told Comstock to apologize, which Comstock did but only “begrudgingly . . . like he really didn’t have to say it.” Rasaan Bowman, one of the bouncers, intervened. He told Vela that Comstock “had been inside drinking, and he probably didn’t know what he was doing and . . . just to let it go.” Twenty or thirty minutes later, Comstock, Lucy and Bennett left the bar and went across the street to the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). As Comstock walked past a pole, he looked in…