Both Ayvazian and Rosenstock described the defendant’s apparently irrational behavior on the day of the killing and two days earlier when he was “driving around confronting complete strangers,” the defense lawyer said. Rosenstock added that there was “no apparent reason for selecting Clinkunbroomer” for murder.
Ayvazian told jurors that following his arrest, Salazar told two undercover operatives in jail during a surreptitiously recorded conversation that he had wanted to kill a police officer for years and described following officers, parking and waiting and playing music to prepare himself.
At a June 2024 hearing in which Salazar was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Detective Gustavo Carrillo testified that Salazar acknowledged his involvement in the shooting during questioning at the Palmdale sheriff’s station by detectives two days after the killing. Salazar told investigators that he felt bad and “cried for the (expletive) officer,” according to the detective.
Under cross-examination by Salazar’s attorney at the preliminary hearing, the detective acknowledged that when asked why he had shot the deputy, Salazar responded that it had “started a long time ago before COVID” and that he “began to hear voices in his head.”
During the sanity phase of the trial, the defense wants to call three mental health professionals who examined and interviewed Salazar and listened to statements he made to law enforcement after his arrest and during an undercover jailhouse operation and then concluded that the defendant was legally insane at the time of the offense, Rosenstock indicated in court papers.