Alleged Road Rage Crash Was 'Citizen’s Arrest,' Defendant Testifies

By Jessica Burger

A man accused of repeatedly ramming a teen driver in a fit of road rage testified in his own defense Tuesday, claiming he was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of a driver fleeing the scene of an accident in Los Alamitos.

Robert Allen Barnhart’s testimony followed that of several prosecution witnesses who testified that he chased and repeatedly hit an 18-year-old driver in 2011, sending the teen into oncoming traffic before pulling him out of his car and beating him. According to prosecutors, it was not the first time Barnhart has faced charges because of his temper.

Barnhart, 56, was convicted of corporal injury to spouse in 1994, said Deputy District Attorney Kristin Bracic. He also faced charges after throwing a cup of coffee at another driver back in 2010.

Barnhart stumbled when Bracic grilled him on the earlier charges under cross-examination.

“Yes, I threw coffee, because I was mad.” Barnhart said, “I wouldn’t base it so much on being angry. It was more, uh, being a little upset.”

Similarly, Barnhart admitted to being upset in November of 2011, when then 18-year-old Jesse Ochoa rear-ended him on Bloomfield Street. According to police, Barnhart got out of his car and began yelling and threatening Ochoa, who then returned to his vehicle and attempted to flee.

“I saw him come out, looking furious and yelling at me that he was going to kill me.” Ochoa testified Tuesday. “I was scared for my life and scared for my girlfriend’s.”

Barnhart pursued Ochoa up Bloomfield Street in his silver pick-up truck and allegedly rear-ended Ochoa twice as the two cut across an Arco gas station onto Ball Avenue. Police say he then hit Ochoa a third time, further up Ball Road, causing Ochoa’s car to spin 180 degrees into opposing traffic.

Ochoa proceeded to drive his black SUV down Ball Road, in the direction of oncoming traffic, as Barnhart made a u-turn and drove down the other side to stop in a cross walk in front of Ochoa. That’s when Ochoa’s SUV broadsided Barnhart’s truck.

“I wouldn’t say I was angry. I would say I was not too happy,” Barnhart said. “I was upset.”

Barnhart contends he pursued Ochoa following the initial fender bender to make a citizen’s arrest. 

“I was gaining on him to get close enough to see his license plate, and he slammed on his brakes causing me to pass him up,” said Barnhart, claiming Ochoa then made a U-turn on his own before driving in the wrong direction.

“I made a regular u-turn and stopped in the crosswalk,” said Barnhart. “He looked at me and smirked. He stepped on the gas pedal and he t-boned into my truck.”

However, witnesses say Ochoa did not make a U-turn into oncoming traffic. They testified that they saw Barnhart side swipe Ochoa on Ball Road, causing him to spin 180 degrees into oncoming traffic.

Some of those witnesses included Ochoa and his girlfriend Cassandra Coyne, who was in the car during the incident. Ochoa was driving his friend’s vehicle at the time with only a learner’s permit and no insurance.

A cell-phone video, taken at the scene of the final impact was shown to the jury as evidence. It depicts Barnhart yelling “He (profanity) rear-ended me,” and, “I want him arrested, and I want him in jail,”  while being restrained on the ground by a citizen.

Barnhart, however,  denied cursing and threatening Ochoa, saying the video shown as evidence “may have been transcribed wrong.”

The two-and-half-minute video also included a glimpse of a Ochoa sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open and a terrified look on his face.

The man restraining Barnhart in the video is Douglas Locke, who at the time of the collisions was in the car with his son Zachary and witnessed the crash while pulling out of a parking lot located nearby on Ball Road. Both testified as witnesses for the prosecution.

Locke said he saw the cars cut across the gas station.

“It looked like one was chasing the other,” he said. After hearing a crash just moments later, Locke and his son both looked up to see Ochoa’s vehicle spinning.

Both said they then watched Barnhart make a u-turn to drive around and up the other side of Ball Avenue, before stopping in front of Ochoa in the cross walk, causing the final t-bone collision. Locke and his son then rushed over to help.

Locke, who is 6-foot-3 and about 300 pounds, said, “I saw the door open, and Mr. Barnhart had the young man out, pulling him around from his shirt like a rag doll.”

He said he then instructed his son to stay with Ochoa while he dealt with Barnhart.

“He was the aggressor,” Locke said. “A man in his mid–late thirties beating up on, what looks to me, like a child.”

On Monday, the prosecution also called eye witness Thomas Ingram of Long Beach and Officer Jacob Sorenson of the Los Alamitos Police Department to the stand.

Tomorrow both sides will make their closing arguments at 9:30 a.m. at the West Justice Center in Westminster before the jury will meet to reach a verdict. Barnhart faces a maximum sentence of five years and two months in State Prison.