Rivas

FACTS

Early in the morning on September 20, 2009, Osvaldo Hernandez drove his friend Victor Arechiga to a gas station with a convenience store to purchase beer. He parked near the front of the store, and Arechiga went in to make the purchase. Arechiga left the store with two 30-packs of beer and may have said something to a couple of girls as he passed by them. As Arechiga put the beer in the backseat of Hernandez’s car, a group of Norteño gang members rushed the car. One of the men yelled, “Are you a scrap?”, using a disrespectful term for Sureños, and someone took the beer from the backseat. Meanwhile, the men began punching and kicking Hernandez as he sat in the driver’s seat. Hernandez was not able to get out of the car because one of the men pushed against the driver’s door. As Hernandez was being blocked from getting out of the car through the driver’s door, someone entered the vehicle through the passenger side door and slashed Hernandez’s cheek with a sharp object. It looked like his face was “split in half.” After the slashing, the group of men fled. Jennifer Hernandez, who is not related to Osvaldo Hernandez, was at the gas station when the attack took place. She saw a…