Published in the April 27 – May 10, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
One found guilty, one not guilty in Romero trial
One of two men on trial for the 2011 drive-by shooting that killed 14-year-old Sobrato High School freshman Tara Romero was found not guilty by a jury earlier this month. After about five days of deliberation, the 12-person jury acquitted Primitivo Hernandez, 27 — who had been in custody since the shooting outside the Village Avante apartment complex at Cosmo and Del Monte avenues where Romero and five friends were waiting for a ride home.
That same jury found Fernando Mateo Lopez, 24, of Gilroy guilty of second degree murder, five counts of attempted murder and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 20.
Five suspects were arrested just hours after the shooting. Ricardo Diaz, 23, of Morgan Hill, pleaded guilty to murder and testified against Hernandez and Mateo Lopez in their trial. He agreed to a minimum sentence of 25 years.
The trial for suspect Esmeling Bahena, 22, of Morgan Hill, began in mid-April. The fifth suspect, Ramon Gutierrez, 21, of Morgan Hill, has been in custody at state mental health facilities since he was declared incompetent to stand trial after a 2012 preliminary hearing.
According to news reports, the prosecutor and investigators presented mounds of evidence that connected Mateo Lopez to the shooting.
However, the state had less evidence connecting Hernandez to the shooting even though he was caught with the others. His attorney argued to the jury that while Hernandez might have been affiliated with the same Sureño street gang as the other suspects in the past, and he was in the car with them during the 2011 shooting, he was unaware the others were planning a shooting.
MHPD officers arrests three suspects in one day
Morgan Hill Life Publisher Marty Cheek was a guest of Rotary Club of Morgan Hill member Chuck Berghoff at the April 13 lunch meeting to hear about the state of public safety in the city in a talk given by Morgan Hill Police Chief David Swing, a fellow Rotarian.
Swing told the “unbelievable” story about how MHPD officers Greg Dini, and Fidel Rios caught three suspects in a very short amount of time the day before the Rotary club meeting.
“Someone decided to come to our fair city from the city of Oakland and was staying in one of our hotels. Our proactive officer Dini saw a suspicious vehicle and found out it was stolen,” Swing told the club members. “We called our auto theft task force and they came down in unmarked vehicles to help apprehend the subject and when he decided to take off, they blocked him in.”
The suspect tried to escape and another vehicle blocked him in so he couldn’t get out the passenger door.
The officers took the subject into custody and found heroin, a loaded gun, and property from a burglary that he committed in Morgan Hill the day before.
Dini didn’t call it a day after that arrest. He went to a different hotel and was doing some snooping around and found a suspicious car that was tied to a theft that had just occurred in Gilroy. And so he did a search and recovered the property there and arrested the subject.
While officer Rios was transporting that second subject to San Martin to do the prisoner exchange with Gilroy PD, his license plate reader got a hit on a different occupied stolen vehicle in San Martin. That third subject was taken into custody as well. All three incident happened in a very short amount of time.
“That just helps to illustrate how we use technology and how we work with the community,” Swing said.
Watch for our story on the state of public safety, based on Swing’s talk, in the May 11 issue of Morgan Hill Life.
Britton School honored as Tech Academy of Innovation
Morgan Hill Unified School District is fast growing into a Silicon Valley powerhouse in training students in science and engineering for high-tech jobs. To four academies focusing on science and math (Paradise Valley will be a new engineering academy in fall), add Britton Middle School which has been selected for the 2016-2019 Tech Academies of Innovation partnership to develop model engineering programs. The Tech Academies of Innovation is an arm of the Tech Museum of Innovation and is a partnership with schools in underserved communities to build model programs for teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
“We are excited to welcome Britton and all our new partners to our growing network of engineering education leaders and model STEM programs,” said Christina O’Guinn, director of School and Afterschool Partnerships at The Tech. “Britton’s addition will allow us to support Morgan Hill Unified to build the kind of engineering pathways between feeder schools we hope to help all of our partner districts establish.”
Tech staff look for well-rounded teams with passionate teacher champions, supportive school and district leadership and a strong after-school partner that will allow them to build model engineering programs in the school and spread to other schools. P.A. Walsh STEAM Academy was selected as a Tech Academy in 2015. The fact that P.A. Walsh feeds into Britton will allow The Tech Academies of Innovation to build engineering pathways between the two schools.
Selected school teams go through a competitive and in-depth application and selection process spanning six months that includes: an information session with a Tech staff member, team formation (selecting at least three teacher leaders and after-school partner), completion of a customized application by all team members, review/scoring and deliberation by the review committee, site visits to the top sites to meet all team members and final deliberation and final selection by the review committee.
– By Staff Reports
