People v. Ominsky CA2/1

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

The enmity between Ominsky and Erick Paiz, Jr., dated to 2007, when Paiz testified in court about an incident in which a friend of Ominsky’s stabbed Paiz. Shortly thereafter, Ominsky began calling Paiz a snitch whenever he encountered him. Ominsky’s verbal attacks escalated in 2018 and 2019 to the point that Paiz found them intolerable. One day in July 2019, Paiz confronted Ominsky in a park. They threw punches at one another, and when Ominsky grabbed a knife he had concealed behind a park bench, Paiz picked up a chunk of concrete that had

1Unless otherwise specified, subsequent statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 detached from the sidewalk. Paiz hit Ominsky with the piece of concrete, knocking him to the ground, and walked away. A few months later, Ominsky parked his car in front of Paiz’s house, got out, flicked a lit cigarette at Paiz, and said, “when I see you on the streets I’m gonna get you.” The situation came to a head on the afternoon of December 9, 2019, when Paiz returned home from buying gas for use in his work as a welder and saw Ominsky parked across the street. Paiz parked his father’s van in the driveway and started…