Court transcripts of testimony from a preliminary hearing in June detailed the harrowing moments before an October officer-involved shooting in Castaic.
A mother described how she was trying to calm her now-estranged husband, Raul Martinez, 45, who was armed and insisted someone was in the trunk of their Lexus SUV, just minutes before he was shot in the head by a responding deputy, according to her testimony.
The defense brought up Martinez’s history of schizophrenic episodes. The victim, who said she was divorcing Martinez, also used the phrase, “I don’t recall,” numerous times on the stand under direct questioning from Deputy District Attorney Myle Phan.
After testimony from Martinez’s wife, the responding deputy and the homicide detective who investigated the shooting, Judge Scott Yang decided to hold Martinez to answer to seven charges stemming from the Oct. 11 standoff with Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station personnel, as well as special allegations stemming from previous felony convictions.
Martinez sustained a gunshot injury during the confrontation. He has been free on a $275,000 bond while awaiting trial since.
The leadup
On the morning of the shooting, the couple, who were not living together at the time, were supposed to go to breakfast with their 6-year-old son, the victim testified.
Martinez was acting oddly, she said in the transcripts, and kept accusing her of “working with the police,” but not making any sense about why or what he was talking about. This did not seem like the man she had married, she told the prosecutor.
Martinez’s wife, who said she was in the process of leaving him, told detectives that Martinez repeatedly yelled at the back seat, “I know you’re back there. I hear you. I’m going to shoot her if you don’t come out,” according to testimony in the court transcripts.
The victim also said that, during the paranoid delusion her husband was having — there was no one in the trunk or back seat, she testified — her husband wanted to let her know she wasn’t in danger.
“He said those things, but he didn’t — he would actually whisper back, saying, ‘I’m just saying that so that person can come out,’” she said on the stand in the court transcript.
However, after they opened all the doors and she showed him there was no one in the trunk, “He was completely out of it,” she testified, and there was “no point there that I could reason with him.”
Victim testimony
Her husband seemed to feel frightened and anxious after checking the trunk, she said. Their son, who was on the autism spectrum, had jumped into the front seat and was playing with the steering wheel at this point, which was something he loved to do.
Sensing Martinez’s growing anxiety, the wife testified that she went around to see her son, and that’s when she heard her husband fire a round into the air and another toward the trunk, according to court transcripts.
Martinez then told his family they were going to be OK, according to the victim’s testimony. “’I think I took care of the person or whoever it was,’” she said, quoting her husband.
At several points in the testimony, the prosecution had to remind the victim of statements she made to police, according to the minute order. Some of the statements on the stand appeared to contradict her earlier statements to L.A. County Sheriff’s Department investigators, based on Phan’s repeated offers to show her a copy of her statement.
After several such offers from Phan to “refresh her memory,” Yang appeared frustrated and mentioned that it hadn’t worked several times so far.
The victim then testified that she was not next to her husband when he fired the shots, and by this point, all the doors in the car were open.
However, after she heard the shots, “The officer arrives immediately. I just start hearing sirens. I start to panic because I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said in the transcript.
Her son was still sitting in the driver’s seat when the deputy arrived. She was standing between her son and her husband, who was next to her outside of the car at this point.
She said she feared for her life, “because the way the officer shot when I told him, ‘Do not shoot. There is a child in the car. He is right next to me.’”
The victim claimed the deputy rushed out of the car and fired before saying anything to the suspect or the victim. Under questioning by Phan, she also disputed how her statement was recorded by the investigators.
When asked whether the suspect was holding her during the shooting, the victim said, “Holding on, but not in a bad way, I guess. He was just trying to keep us close. And that’s when the officer shoots him, and he just falls to the ground.”
Her husband was next to her, holding her tight with one arm and the firearm with another when the deputy fired, according to her testimony.
She also testified that she could still feel the side of his handgun against her rib cage after the shooting, but it wasn’t pointing at her. The prosecution said that conflicted with an earlier statement she gave.
“So that’s … it’s written that way, but that’s not what I said,” she testified, referring to her statements about the gun. “I kept telling them I felt it. I never said ‘pointed.’”
LASD response
Deputy Tarek Salah was on patrol as the school resource officer for Castaic middle and high schools when he heard the call go out at around noon for “shots fired” in the area of Parker and Sloan canyon roads, according to the court transcript.
Salah, who was on patrol alone, found the SUV described in the call about three to four minutes later, he testified.
“I was on high alert,” he said, “just didn’t want anybody to get hurt.”
Salah said he could see the suspect had the victim in “kind of like a headlock,” holding a firearm and standing behind her near the driver’s side door, when he first arrived.
Salah testified that Martinez was pointing the gun at him until he parked his vehicle and exited it with the sirens off about a car length and a half from where the suspect and victim were standing.
“He still had her in the headlock, and he literally pointed the pistol at her head behind the car door of the vehicle as I was attempting to detain him at that point,” Salah testified.
He said the open rear door obstructed his view, so he wasn’t immediately aware of the child in the car.
Salah described the instant threat assessment he made on the stand after the weapon was pointed at him and the victim, he said. He made the decision in about two to three seconds once he saw the gun pointed at the victim’s head, according to the transcript.
He acknowledged there were no words exchanged.
“I recognized my opportunity that I needed to meet this suspect with lethal force, and I was taking into consideration that I have to take a hostage headshot, which is very complicated, very difficult,” Salah said on the stand, according to the transcript. “I set my sights, and when I got a clear look at the suspect’s head which was just slightly above the car door, I pulled the trigger, and I discharged my firearm.”
Salah testified that he then ordered the victim and her son back and restrained the suspect and then provided first aid, according to court transcripts. Martinez was bleeding from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Shooting investigation
Homicide Bureau Detective Gene Takashima testified that he found two different handguns near the suspect’s Lexus SUV, a .22 caliber and a 9mm.
The 26-year veteran investigated the incident as part of departmental policy, because all officer-involved shootings are investigated by a homicide detective.
Takashima also testified he found a bullet hole in the backseat, which he believed was one of two shots mentioned by the victim, according to the court transcript.
Takashima said the victim used the word “pointed” in describing how Martinez held the gun against her, which corroborated the initial testimony detectives reported — in contradiction to her testimony on the stand.
Takashima also testified the victim said Martinez “displayed” the handgun while they were driving around, which the victim denied on the stand.
Next month, Martinez will face a hearing on a motion by his attorney that’s seeking a mental health diversion for Martinez’s trial. If granted, that could temporarily or permanently remove the case from criminal proceedings.
