People v. Messing CA2/8

FACTS

On October 25, 2012, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies Ed Arnone and Ryan Diez were patrolling in Palmdale when they noticed a car fail to signal a left turn and the driver did not wear a seatbelt. Messing was the driver of the vehicle. He accelerated when he noticed the deputies make a U-turn to follow him. He made another left turn “at a fairly high rate of speed” on to Avenue Q-12 and the deputies lost sight of him for about five seconds. When the deputies activated their lights, however, Messing pulled over. While conducting the traffic stop, the deputies were contacted by their dispatcher, who advised them a witness saw Messing throw an object out the passenger window as he drove down Avenue Q-12. Deputy Arnone contacted the witness, Ana Veronica Contreras, the manager of an apartment complex on Avenue Q-12. She called 911 to report that something was thrown from a car while it was pursued by the police.1 During her call, she stated she saw the police pursue the car, saw something thrown from the car, and saw the police stop the car. However, she clarified at trial that she did not personally observe any of these events, but merely reported what her tenants had…