In re Zachary S. CA2/5

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Offense Conduct Early one morning in March 2015, at approximately 3:45 a.m., Sebastian Bernardo (Bernardo) was walking to work in Santa Monica, California. One young man, shortly thereafter joined by two others, began following Bernardo. The three young men approached Bernardo from behind and pushed him to the ground. Over the next several minutes, no more than five, the assailants kicked and punched Bernardo in multiple areas of his body, and Bernardo thought they were going to kill him. He suffered bruises all over his body, and had cuts, bruises, or scrapes on his head and his knee in particular. While the attack was underway, Bernardo’s cell phone fell out of a holster onto the ground. One of the attackers grabbed the cell phone and ran off, and the other two followed shortly thereafter. Before and during the assault, Bernardo did not get a “good look” at his attackers’ faces; while he was being kicked and punched, he was covering his face with his arms and could not see clearly. However, once the three young men “took off” running at the end of the assault, they turned back to look at Bernardo and Bernardo saw their faces and what they were…