The Gilroy man police believe shot into a car full of people,
injuring two, at the Stoney Court Apartments in 2007 may head to
trial in March, after sitting in jail for more than three years
after his alleged crimes.
The Gilroy man police believe shot into a car full of people, injuring two, at the Stoney Court Apartments in 2007 may head to trial in March, after sitting in jail for more than three years after his alleged crimes.
The evening of March 27, 2007, Tomas Martinez Romero, 22, fired about 10 rounds into a white Toyota parked outside Gilroy’s Stoney Court Apartments – located just south of San Ysidro Park and west of U.S. 101 in east Gilroy – police said. The car contained five males, including the brother of one of Martinez Romero’s acquaintances.
According to police reports and testimony given by Gilroy police, the two brothers – one who was seated in the white Toyota and sustained a gunshot wound and one who police believe was in the same car that Martinez Romero got out of prior to the shooting – had an argument in the parking lot minutes before the shooting occurred. After the argument, the brothers retreated to their respective cars – the white Toyota occupied by the victims and another car, described as an older model brown Cadillac.
The brown Cadillac Martinez Romero rode in with one of the brothers then began to leave the apartment’s parking lot before Martinez Romero told the driver to stop, saying he had to urinate, according to police testimony. Martinez Romero then got out of the car and disappeared. While Martinez Romero was gone, gunshots rang out and Martinez Romero hurried back to the car, telling the driver to step on it because he had heard shots fired, police said.
Two of the Toyota’s occupants – the brother of Martinez Romero’s acquaintance and a juvenile who was 14 at the time of the shooting – were wounded.
Martinez Romero was charged with two counts of attempted murder and will appear in court 9 a.m. March 29 in Department 110 at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill for a trial setting hearing. Prosecutors estimated the trial will last two weeks.
