People v. Ontiveros CA2/1

Background A. Prosecution evidence The prosecution presented the testimony of Armando Torres that on June 3, 2013, he lived in a tent behind his grandparents’ house on Joliet Avenue in the Hawaiian Gardens area of Los Angeles. Torres’s then-17-year-old cousin Alicia and her younger brother Aaron, Alicia’s mother Connie Villacava, and the mother’s parents (Torres’s, Alicia’s, and her brother’s grandparents) lived in the main house.2 Torres was then 31 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, and weighed about 210 pounds. About 4:00 o’clock that afternoon, Torres was walking home carrying a grocery bag and a sandwich in a bag. As he crossed the street toward his house he saw Ontiveros and a friend going to the friend’s house next door. Torres knew Ontiveros as his cousin Alicia’s boyfriend or former boyfriend, but he did not then know Ontiveros’s name. He did not know Ontiveros’s friend, Marcos Martinez, who lived in the house next door. When Torres reached to open his front gate he heard someone say “I’m going to fuck him up,” and turned to see that it was Ontiveros. Ontiveros then walked toward

1 Further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified. 2 We refer…