“Minor property damage turned into a death sentence,” Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Feldman told the jury.
With his girlfriend and their 4-year-old son watching, a 42-year-old man jumped out of his pickup truck and opened fire on a group of friends and cousins in a road-rage dispute in Costa Mesa on Thanksgiving Day, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.
Lee Queuon Walker is charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder with sentencing enhancements for discharge of a gun causing death and inflicting great bodily injury on the victims.
Walker is accused of fatally shooting 30-year-old Lucas Rivera-Velasco of Costa Mesa on Nov. 24 at 423 W. Bay St. Also wounded in the shooting were Salvador Pulido-Nieto, Bernardo Millan-Pulido, Hugo Medina-Rivera and Gilberto Mediina-Rivera, while Jaime Nieto-Millan escaped injury.
Walker’s defense attorney, Randall Bethune of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, declined to make an opening statement in the trial Thursday.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Feldman said the cousins and friends had watched Mexico’s soccer team compete in the World Cup and went to lunch at 1:30 p.m. at Costa Brava restaurant in Costa Mesa.
The victims work as gardeners and landscapers and were enjoying their rare day off, Feldman said.
