Several cameras captured the chaos and in one instance the actual shooting death of one of two men who were killed when gunfire broke out at a quinceañera celebration in a Galt ballroom two years ago, a prosecutor said today.
In his opening statement in the murder trial of Alfred Daniel Tafoya, Deputy District Attorney Eric Kindall showed jurors still photographs from the Nov. 28, 2009, party at the Estrellita Ballroom on C Street where Carlos Alonso Montes, 24, and Efrain Zambrano, 20, were shot and killed.
The pictures showed Tafoya, who is now 20, walking across the ballroom's dance floor approaching the area where a fight had broken out between a friend of his and other people who were at the party. Kindall said that Tafoya's friend was wearing a blue baseball cap emblematic of his affiliation with a Sureno street gang faction.
Relatives of the victims said at the time of the shootings the two men were not associated with street gangs. Galt police confirmed the relatives' comments.
Tafoya's attorney, Pete Harned, told the jury in his opening statement that a Norteno faction started the fight with his client's friend. Harned said Tafoya's friend, identified today only by his nickname of "Aztek," was being "pummeled" in the fight.,
Harned told the jury that his client was "not responsible for first-degree murder in this event."
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