Confrontation Between 2 Men Turns Deadly At Santa Ana Starbucks
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A Starbucks in Santa Ana remained closed Tuesday night after a confrontation between two men turned deadly at the coffee shop.
Witnesses said a man in his 50's, who appeared to be on drugs, was acting strangely outside the Starbucks at 3345 S. Bristol St. about 12:30 p.m. before storming into the coffee shop and confronting a younger man holding a skateboard.
Customer Sophia Hendle said: "He was very angry for quite sometime before the incident happened. He was yelling a lot. And he banged on the window really hard, flew the door open and started walking up to the kid with a skateboard."
Hendle said she was only a few feet from the confrontation. "He was yelling. And then the kid stood up really quick, grabbed his skateboard, just hit him really hard. And he was out like that." She said the agitated man yelled racial slurs at the young man. "There were a couple of really harsh words that I would rather not say, some derogatory terms against this kid," she recalled. "He just said: 'I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you'."
Witness Jocelyn Martinez said the man with the skateboard was taunted to the point of self-defense. "The man came in and said: 'Did you hear me stutter?' That's when he took that step towards the kid. And the kid, in self-defense, hit him with the skateboard," Martinez said.
Martinez said she was next to the man, who fell to the ground, after being struck on the side of the head with the skateboard. The injured man took a few breaths but never regained consciousness, she said.
Bystanders took the man's pulse and called 911. Paramedics took the victim to Orange County Global Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.
Martinez said the man with the skateboard looked terrified. "It's very traumatizing moment. I was right next to it. It was unbelievable."
Witness said the older man seemed to have singled out the younger man and tried to pick a fight with him. And they are convinced that had he not defended himself, he would have been attacked.
The younger man is a friend of a Starbucks employee. Investigators said they detained the 20-year-old for questioning and released him. No charges were filed.
"At this point we don't know if there was a relationship between the two of them. But something led to a verbal altercation, which led to a physical altercation," Bertagna said. "We do not know if it was done in self-defense or it was an act of aggression. That's what the detectives were looking into."
