By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
An admitted gang member testified today that "I pulled a gun out and shot with my eyes closed" when he killed the host of a 2008 Halloween Night party in the La Riviera-Larchmont Park area.
"I mean it just happened," Elijah Rasean Fields, 20, told a Sacramento Superior Court jury. "I don't really see it in my mind. I know it just happened."
Patrick Razaghzadeh, 24, was hit five times from the bullets fired from Fields' handgun, including once in the forehead. He fell to the pavement and died in the back yard of the house he and some buddies had been renting on Rogue River Drive.
Fields and co-defendant Corey Carmicle, 24, are charged with murder and four counts of attempted murder in the trial that is expected to go to the jury next week.
Prosecutors have charged that Fields and Carmicle carried out the killing to benefit the interests of their North Highlands based street gang known as the Monk Mobb.
Under questioning from his attorney, Peter Kmeto, Fields said he took the gun from Carmicle for safekeeping on the ride over to the party from North Highlands.
Carmicle, Fields said, had ingested the party drug Ecstasy and was waving the gun around inside their van. Fields said he had taken the drug as well but had not yet begun to feel the effects.
He testified that he had begun to feel high at the party and "was really in my own world" when a commotion broke out.
Witnesses said that Razaghzadeh and others became upset with the Monk Mobb group when a camera came up missing, when women complained of being groped and when friction arose over some of the gang members' refusing to take a swig off another partygoer's bottle of cognac.
Amid the fracas, Fields told the jury he saw a crowd rush in his direction and felt he was going to be attacked. He said he then pulled out the gun and shot blindly.
"I wasn't aiming," he testified.
He said when he opened his eyes, he saw one man fall to the ground. Then, he said, he ran to the van for the getaway.
"I was scared of going to jail," Fields said, when asked by Kmeto why he ran off. "I had just shot a gun."
He said he didn't mean to kill anybody and didn't find out that he did until he saw it on "the Internet" the next day.
Kmeto told jurors in his opening statement that the shooting was a case of imperfect self defense on his client's part. He asked the jury to return a manslaughter instead of a murder conviction.
Deputy District Attorney Andrew Soloman had just begun his cross-examination before the noon break. He is expected to complete it this afternoon.
Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.
Previous coverage:
Witnesses describe confrontations at fatal Sacramento party - March 1, 2011
Sacramento trial told killing was by Monk Mobb - Feb. 15, 2011
One of three defendants in '08 murder case takes plea deal - Jan. 27, 2011
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