By Lauren Smith
SACRAMENTO – While defendant Luis Luna’s ex-girlfriend testified about a domestic disturbance that occurred on May 9 this year, Luna blew kisses at the Zoom screen the victim appeared on in a Sacramento County Superior Court preliminary hearing late last week.
According to the victim’s testimony, on May 9, the defendant and his girlfriend at the time spent all day hanging out before going back to her apartment to eat dinner and have a couple of drinks. She stated that she “didn’t want to hang out with [Luna] all night” so he left, and she started hanging out with a different friend.
While her other friend was over, the defendant began texting the victim saying that he was “going to come back over.” The victim ignored him and turned her phone off.
Not long after, Luna “showed up to the front porch” of the victim’s apartment and started “looking through the cracks of my windows before he had ever even knocked…he was talking through the door while he was knocking on the door.”
The victim further stated that he asked her to open the door and threatened to “beat [her] a*s” and “beat [her friend’s] a*s.” The defendant also called the victim “a bunch of times” from different numbers threatening to “beat [her] a*s” as well. When asked to recall how many times Luna had called her, the victim stated it was “90 plus” times.
She also stated she kept telling him through the closed door to stop and that it “wasn’t a good idea because someone would call the cops.” However, according to her testimony, Luna continued to 
threaten “to break [her] windows, [her] door, [and] he threatened to climb through [her] windows.”
The victim testified that the defendant was there for “a long time. I would call the cops and they would say that they were dispatching somebody, it was a couple hours because I had called at least three times.”
She added that she was afraid and thought the defendant would actually follow through on the threat based on their history. According to her statement, there was a prior altercation that went unreported to the police. The defendant and victim “got into a fight one time” when she sustained a black eye and cracked cheekbone.
When officers arrived on the scene they began searching for the defendant. Officers Matthew Herman and Eric Barbee located the defendant outside the gates to the victim’s apartment complex. Once the defendant confirmed his identity, officer Herman arrested him.
Officer Barbee conducted a search of the defendant’s car and found a “Glock .42 handgun” under the driver seat. While investigating the weapon, the officers found 13 rounds in a magazine, a live round in the chamber, and one round on the floorboard of the car. This amount of ammunition in a gun is illegal in California—only magazines that hold 10 rounds are legal.
Officer Barbee stated that the gun was not in any container and was being “transported illegally.” He ran the gun for registration and found that there was “no deal or record of sale on the gun.”
The defendant was also involved in a prior incident with a firearm on Feb. 1.
Officer Jerred Brown testified that he was dispatched to a caller that stated her neighbor “had brandished a firearm at her and that she was fearful.”
When Officer Brown made contact with the caller, she stated to him that she was inside when she heard a “loud banging on her front door.” Initially, she thought the banging was a police officer but when she walked to the front door, she saw her neighbor was walking away from her door.
She further stated that when she opened the door her neighbor turned around to face her and started yelling at her accusing her of robbing his house. She stated that he had a “black colored pistol in his hand and was waving it around in her direction, pointing it at her.”
The neighbor also stated to Officer Brown that the defendant was “going to kill her as to get retribution of a perceived break in at his residence.”
According to the officer’s testimony, there was a previous break in at the defendant’s home and the neighbor stated that he was “paranoid” from that break in.
Judge Kristina B. Lindquist ruled that the charges, which include carrying a concealed firearm and threatening to commit bodily injury, “have been committed and I do find sufficient cause that the defendant is guilty.”
Luna’s trial is set for March 29, 2021.
Lauren Smith is a fourth year student at UC Davis, double majoring in Political Science and Psychology. She is from San Diego, California.
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