There may not be a single eyewitness in the June 2005 shooting death of Francisco Arriaga, but a Pima County prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that forensics prove Vernon Lee Bullock Jr. pulled the trigger.
Wednesday was the first day in Bullock's first-degree-murder trial.
During opening statements, prosecutor Lewis Brandes told jurors that on June 12, 2005, a riot broke out among 250 or more people in the parking lot of the Bum Steer dance club, 1910 N. Stone Ave.
No one knows why the melee broke out, but racial slurs and gang "overtones" were involved. When it was over Arriaga, 25, was dead.
A 9 mm bullet struck Arriaga in the right forearm and then traveled into his chest, Brandes said. A second bullet from the same gun struck his chest as well.
Detectives gathered evidence at the scene — including a 9 mm gun — but couldn't find anyone who saw Arriaga get shot, Brandes said.
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Three months later, however, police received a tip identifying Bullock as the shooter.
Brandes said Bullock's DNA was found on the gun and ballistics tests proved the gun was the one that fired the fatal shots.
Moreover, Bullock, a 29-year-old Tucsonan, admitted in a recorded interview that he fired a 9 mm gun that night and threw it away, Brandes said.
Bullock told detectives he turned and indiscriminately fired the gun three times because he thought someone was behind him, firing a gun toward him, Brandes said.
Brandes said the evidence proves, however, that Bullock intended for Arriaga to die. Gunpowder burns on Arriaga's arm prove the shooter was within four feet of his target.
Defense attorney Monique Lyon urged the jurors to listen closely to what Bullock actually told detectives, saying it will make all the difference at the end of the trial.
They'll also have to ask themselves, Lyon said, whether the gun seized by police is really the murder weapon and whether police collected all of the evidence they could have.
There were at least three fights in the parking lot that night, Lyon said. People were being beaten and kicked, other weapons were being fired, officers were being cursed and there weren't enough of them to quell the riot, let alone search for evidence, she said.
At the end of the trial, Lyon told the jury, they'll acquit Bullock of first-degree murder.
