RIVERSIDE, CA — Jury selection began Monday in the trial of two men accused of killing a 21-year-old Riverside motorist with whom one of the defendants had a long-standing feud, gunning the man down as he drove with his baby.
Freddy Cebrero, 31, and Francisco Rodriguez, 27, both of Riverside, are accused in the 2021 slaying of Damian Preciado.
Each defendant is charged with first-degree murder, firearm assault, a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations, with an additional allegation of shooting from a moving vehicle.
Pretrial motions concluded last week, and on Monday morning, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jerry Yang summoned several panels of prospective jurors to the Riverside Hall of Justice for screening as to their availability and qualifications.
Opening statements in the trial are likely before week's end.
Both defendants are being held without bail -- Cebrero at the Benoit Detention Center in Indio, and Rodriguez at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.
According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney's Office, Cebrero and his older brother, Axel Cebrero, had been at odds with Preciado since their teens, stemming from the victim's tagging, or graffiti spray-painting, activity in the same locations around west Riverside where Axel Cebrero allegedly liked to deface property.
There had been instances in which the Cebreros and their tagging "crew" had "vandalized his property," and during street encounters, they "would always try to fight Preciado," the brief stated.
On the morning of Sept. 19, 2021, Freddy Cebrero and Rodriguez were driving Cebrero's father's Chevrolet pickup along Tyler Street when they spotted the victim, carrying his 5-month-old son, going into a supermarket, prosecutors said.
"The defendants rushed back to Cebrero's house a few minutes away, retrieved a handgun and drove back to where Preciado was last seen," according to the brief.
The defendants, along with another man, whose identity was not disclosed, parked and waited, watching the market, the narrative said.
The prosecution said after Preciado left the market with his groceries, he secured his baby son in a rear car seat and drove away in his silver Volvo sedan. The defendants tailed him, following him to the nearest intersection — Arlington Avenue and Tyler Street — where he got into the left-turn lane to go westbound on Arlington, the brief alleged.
Cebrero slowed and pulled the pickup next to the Volvo, prosecutors said.
"He gave Rodriguez the gun and told him to kill Preciado," court papers stated. "Rodriguez took the gun, leaned out the rear driver's side passenger window and fired. The Volvo was struck multiple times."
The defendants immediately fled, prosecutors said.
Preciado was hit in the neck, and the bullet penetrated an artery, causing him to bleed profusely, though before losing consciousness, he was able to tell a good Samaritan who ran over to the car to check his baby. The brief said the witness spotted the child crying and covered in his father's blood but not wounded. The child was taken out of the car to the sidewalk, where the witness held him until paramedics arrived.
Preciado was taken to Riverside Community Hospital in grave condition. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
Riverside Police Department Robbery-Homicide Unit detectives were unable to develop leads in the case for weeks, but by December 2021, they procured sufficient information after scrutinizing the defendants' mobile phones' location data and eyewitness testimony that they obtained arrest warrants for Cebrero and Rodriguez.
The defendants were taken into custody without incident between late December 2021 and early January 2022. They were interviewed separately by detectives, voluntarily giving statements, according to the prosecution.
"Both admitted they saw Preciado shortly before the shooting, went to Cebrero's house and got a gun, then went back looking for Preciado with the intention of killing him," according to the brief.
Neither man has documented prior felony convictions in adult court.
The third individual inside the pickup has never been identified.
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