People v. Prado CA6

I. Background

San Jose Police Officer Justin Moro was on duty in a marked patrol car on Thanksgiving Day in 2012. He was driving by Plata Arroyo Park around 1:40 p.m. when he saw a group of six to 10 Hispanic males in red, black, and white clothing “punching and kicking” someone who was on the ground and “pinned up against the fence.” Moro stopped his patrol car “and started to lay on my air horn.” The attackers “continued to punch and kick the person on the ground” so Moro “drove straight up onto the sidewalk onto the grass as I was blaring my air horn.” The assailants “finally looked up” and started to run away. The majority ran east and south toward the park exit. Moro saw “a few more working [their] way north” and jumped out of his car to chase them but realized it would be futile. He turned his attention to the victim, who “was yelling ‘Hey, they are over here, they are getting away.’ ” The victim “was . . . yelling [H]ey they are getting away. They are here. And [he] turned back and pointed to the defendants and back and forth pointing to me and following the defendants at a safe distance.” “He was yelling those are the two guys that did it and jumped me . . . . He was…