Attorneys present closing arguments in restaurant shooting trial

Attorneys presented their closing arguments on Thursday in the trial of a Yuba City man charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

Victor Esquivel, 36, allegedly shot Elias Garibay, of Yuba City, in the head inside a restaurant in the 100 block of Percy Avenue, Yuba City, on Nov. 8, 2019. Esquivel allegedly fled the scene of the shooting and was arrested in the Los Angeles area the next day.

After a final rebuttal witness for the prosecution finished testifying on Thursday, closing arguments began. Deputy District Attorney Diego Heimlich began by telling the jury that the case was simple.

“There is no big issue of self-defense,” Heimlich said. “This was simply an attempted murder.”

Heimlich provided the jury with a review of the incident and the evidence presented in the case. He said Esquivel arrived at the restaurant where Esquivel’s girlfriend was with her young child. Garibay was at the restaurant to pick up food and while he was there Esquivel came inside. Heimlich said witnesses testified that Esquivel’s girlfriend was crying, and that Esquivel tried to get her to leave by pulling her.

Garibay then stepped in and said, “You’re going to start some (expletive),” to Esquivel in Spanish.

At that point, Heimlich said, Esquivel retrieved his gun from his car, came back into the restaurant and held the gun to Garibay’s head. He tried firing it but the gun didn’t go off. Garibay ran to the back of the restaurant, Esquivel followed and, according to witnesses, was manipulating the gun trying to get it to fire. The gun went off once and missed Garibay. Garibay crashed through a sliding glass door trying to escape and fell on the floor. Esquivel then fired a second shot that hit Garibay in the head.

“It wasn’t magically,” Heimlich said of the gunshots. “It went off because the defendant pulled the trigger… His intent that night was clear.”

Heimlich went over the instructions given to the jury and how the evidence proved the elements needed to find Esquivel guilty of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He used a Powerpoint presentation and projected images of Garibay in the hospital that depicted the injuries he suffered. Inside the court’s jury assembly room where members of Garibay’s family watched the trial via video, some covered their eyes and became emotional at the sight of the photos.

Heimlich said Garibay can no longer walk or see and can no longer take care of himself.

“His life was changed that day,” Heimlich said.

As part of the defense’s case, Esquivel took the stand and gave his account of what happened. Heimlich said the defendant had not acted in self-defense. He conceded that Garibay may have beat up Esquivel earlier in the night, as the defendant said, but that a significant amount of time had passed between then and the shooting, and that Garibay was not armed when he was in the restaurant.

He said Esquivel’s claim that he heard another shot before he entered the restaurant and that he was looking away from the restaurant when he heard the shot was part of a concocted story that Esquivel came up with while in custody.

“He really thought it through,” Heimlich said.

No other witness testimony of the incident corroborated Esquivel’s version, according to Heimlich.

Defense attorney Jesse Santana reminded the jury of the high bar for finding someone guilty of a crime and that a not guilty verdict must be returned unless the prosecution proved the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Santana reviewed Esquivel’s story that while dropping off his girlfriend at a house near the restaurant he was kicked, punched and threatened by Garibay and another individual. Esquivel said that at that time Garibay had a gun. According to Esquivel, he was attacked on and off for about 45 minutes.

Santana defended his client for not calling for help during the attack.

“It just happens sometimes,” Santana said. “He was scared.”

Santana pointed out that different prosecution witnesses provided a different account of what happened and that some heard what could have been a gunshot before Esquivel entered the restaurant.

Esquivel hearing a gunshot coming from inside the restaurant, where his girlfriend and child were, is what led him to go inside with his gun, according to Santana.

Closing arguments finished around 5 p.m. on Thursday. The jury will begin deliberating today (Friday).