Witness Saw Confrontations Between Dodgers, Giants Fans
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Three women who were in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium after the team's home opener last year testified Thursday in the beating case of Giants fan Bryan Stow.
Megan Duffy took the witness stand during the second day of a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to require Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood to stand trial for the violent attack.
"I don't remember how many men there were but I did see a gentleman throw a punch at Bryan Stow," Duffy said.
"I heard Bryan hit the pavement, the parking lot pavement, and then I saw Bryan get kicked in the head," she said.
Another witness, Joann Cerda, also could not pick out Sanchez or Norwood as the attackers but detailed how the attack occur.
"Suspect 1 came back and kicked [Stow] while he was lying down on the floor," Cerda said.
Ana Maria Davila testified that a taller, light-skinned man who was wearing a tank top and had a tattoo on his arm and a shorter Hispanic man wearing a white Dodgers jersey chased after two separate groups of Giants fans while in Lot 2 at Dodger Stadium after the game on March 31, 2011.
On cross-examination, the woman said she was shown "six-packs" of photos of potential suspects but was not been able to identify anyone.
Davila said that she saw a young Giants fan being punched during the first run-in -- in which the Giants fans said they did not want any trouble -- and that the shorter man returned to the area near where their cars were parked and tried to high-five her and told her, "... Yeah, that's how we do it."
She said she later noticed another group of four men wearing Giants apparel walking by and heard the shorter man yelling obscenities about the Giants at them, and that they responded that they did not want any trouble and continued to make their way through the parking lot.
Davila said the two men ran through the lot after a woman with them yelled, "They're talking smack," and she saw them a few minutes later as they ran out of breath back to the white, four-door sedan and heard the woman being told to drive away.
She said she helped a sketch artist create composite sketches of the two men.
Los Angeles police Detective Barry Telis, who is one of the investigating officers on the Stow beating case, said he concluded that there was a resemblance between the composite sketches and photographs of Sanchez, 30, and Norwood, 31, both of Rialto.
He noted on cross-examination that Giovanni Ramirez, another man initially arrested in connection with the attack but later cleared of any involvement, also resembled the sketch.
Ramirez had already been arrested before the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division was assigned to the case, the detective said.
"As we investigated further, we realized that Giovanni Ramirez was not the suspect involved," Telis testified.
The Robbery-Homicide detective said Davila -- who witnessed the first dust-up involving the Giants fans -- was asked to attend line-ups of potential suspects.
"I was only present for the second live line-up," he said. "She did not make an identification."
In a stipulation read in court by Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee, both the prosecution and the defense agreed Stow suffered a fracture to his skull that resulted in the loss of a portion of his skull and required him to be placed into a medically induced coma.
Stow, who is still unable to walk and has suffered the loss of motor skills in his arms and hands, will require skilled long-term care for the rest of his life, according to the stipulation.
Sanchez and Norwood are charged with one felony count each of mayhem, assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and battery with serious bodily injury, along with the allegation that the two inflicted great bodily injury on Stow.
Stow, a father of two who was wearing a Giants jersey, was attacked while walking with friends in the baseball stadium's parking lot after the Dodgers' opening-day win over the Giants.
Prosecutors contended in court papers filed last summer that the men initially shoved Stow, followed him after he and his friends walked away, punched him in the side of the head and then kicked him in the head after knocking him unconscious. A Bay Area paramedic now unable to work, Stow is still being treated for his injuries.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
