People v. Renteria CA2/6

FACTS

Carrying a Loaded Firearm Angela Forhan was driving Renteria and her cousin, Eric Medrano, around Santa Paula. Medrano was a member of the Crimies gang. From the back seat, Renteria fired a gun out of the window two or three times.2 Forhan dropped off Renteria at his house. Ten minutes later, the police stopped her while investigating a “shots fired call.” They recovered a nine-millimeter shell casing from the rear seat of the vehicle. Six months later, Officer Joash Rothermel encountered Renteria in front of Renteria’s house in Santa Paula. When Rothermel got out of his vehicle to talk to him, Renteria ran away. Rothermel caught up and grabbed him. Renteria said “he was just trying to take a piss.” The next day, Renteria’s next-door neighbors found a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun in their yard near the fence along the property line. They contacted the police. The gun was loaded with 12 rounds of ammunition. Forensic expert Geoff Bruton compared the casing from a test-fired cartridge with the casing recovered from the back seat of Forhan’s car and concluded based on microscopic markings that both had been fired from the same gun. Assault Renteria and Yesenia…