SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced Wednesday that his office has filed attempted murder charges against the teenager accused of shooting three people at San Jose’s Westfield Valley Fair mall on Black Friday, and will ask a juvenile court judge to move his case to adult court.
“When you’re 17 years old, and you take a loaded gun into a crowded shopping mall and you spray it, and you come within inches of killing someone, feet of killing multiple people, you need to go to prison for that,” Rosen said, while standing in front of a phalanx of TV cameras during a news conference outside the county Juvenile Hall.
The slim-framed teenager appeared in juvenile court Wednesday morning, tapping his foot nervously and looking back at his mother and stepfather. Presiding Judge Julianne Sylva ordered that he remain detained in juvenile hall and have no contact with the three victims, including a suspected rival gang member and two shoppers. The next hearing is set for Dec. 15. A ruling on whether the teen should be transferred to adult court likely won’t be made for a month or more, prosecutors say.
Three adults from San Jose were charged as accessories for “harboring” the suspect after he fled the mall: 21-year-old Allana Nevaeh Murillo, who was seen pushing her baby in a stroller alongside the suspect when the shooting broke out; the suspect’s brother, 20-year-old Christian Joel Duran, who is in a relationship with Murillo; and 33-year-old Evan John Moniz.
All three people were in custody Wednesday and technically made their first court appearances, but did not enter pleas. They were granted bail at an afternoon hearing.
Judge Benjamin Williams issued protective orders against the defendants for the three victims and continued the arraignment to Thursday, when Deputy District Attorney Daisy Altamore intends to argue for the pretrial jailing of the defendants.
Murillo and Duran were out of custody with pending felony cases filed two years ago charging them with assault causing great bodily injury for their alleged involvement in an Aug. 7, 2023 gang-related fight at James Lick High School, where the shooting suspect was a student. Murillo was accused of severely assaulting a teacher. School faculty and administration had to break up the brawl, which allegedly included Duran.
The shooting allegedly committed by the 17-year-old “was for the benefit of a criminal street gang,” Rosen said. The male victim, 28, was shot in the chest but was released from the hospital within days. The suspect was also charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury to two bystanders, a woman and a 16-year-old girl, who were shot in the legs.
The decision of whether the suspect will be prosecuted in juvenile court or adult court will be made by a judge. If the suspect is convicted in juvenile court, Rosen said he will likely face at most three to five years in Juvenile Hall, on what is known as a “secure track,” while an adult conviction could lead to a prison term in which he would have to serve at least 15 years before parole consideration.
“I don’t believe that three to five years in a juvenile facility will rehabilitate this 17-year-old… I don’t think it reflects the seriousness of this conduct,” Rosen said. “Taking a loaded firearm into the mall on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and spraying six bullets, is extremely dangerous conduct and will require a significant period of time incarcerated to rehabilitate this person.”
The Valley Fair shooting unfolded around 5:40 p.m. Nov. 28 on a second-floor walkway near the Macy’s women’s store on the San Jose side of the mall.
According to police, the 17-year-old suspect — whose name has been withheld by authorities because he is a minor — was with the three implicated adults when they encountered a group of men whom they did not know. They perceived the group as being associated with a rival street gang based on the colors they were wearing.
A brief verbal interaction ensued, which was quickly followed by the suspect allegedly pulling out a handgun tucked in his waistband and firing a half-dozen shots.
The gunfire touched off a mass panic as shoppers fled for the exits while mall security and San Jose police cleared the scene. Others sought shelter in shops and eateries, and some even received refuge from residents who live across from the mall grounds.
A massive manhunt ensued, headed by SJPD but soon joined by Santa Clara police — who patrol the western half of the mall — the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol, FBI and ATF. Police said they tracked the teen suspect to a home in San Jose, where he was arrested Sunday night.
On Monday, authorities revealed that the teen was on probation for a concealed-gun possession charge from February. He had received a deferred judgment requiring him to fulfill counseling and rehabilitation measures that, if successfully completed, would have led to the charge’s dismissal.
Over the summer, Murillo filed a motion for mental-health diversion for her pending assault charge. Prosecutors objected, and detailed allegations of how Murillo, Duran and the teen shooting suspect alongside several other people went to the campus that day expressly to fight a student they believed was bullying the teen.
School faculty and administrators had to break up the brawl. In the aftermath, a teacher who followed Murillo to the parking lot and took photos, as part of a requirement to document the incident, ended up being attacked in three successive clashes.
Authorities and witnesses contend that the teacher identified herself when Murillo asked her why she was following her, and that Murillo chose to “hunt down” and blindside the teacher with repeated blows to her head.
Even as bystanders and students yelled “That is a teacher!” during the reported attack, prosecutors said Murillo did not relent, and had to be pulled away by witnesses. Murillo, who has been employed by the county as a paraeducator working with autistic children, claims in her motion that the teacher was harassing and insulting her, and pulled down her shirt and hair; the teacher claimed that those acts were strictly to defend herself from an onslaught that left her hemorrhaging in one of her eyeballs.
The teen’s arrest nine months later for a shooting that garnered national headlines prompted San Jose Police Chief Paul Joseph, Mayor Matt Mahan and Rosen to renew their criticisms of juvenile justice laws. They argued such laws inadequately account for the threat posed by minors accused of gun crimes and other more explicit acts of violence.
They referred to an infamous Valentine’s Day stabbing that killed an unsuspecting 15-year-old boy at nearby Santana Row, another upscale shopping site, allegedly at the hands of a 13-year-old boy. Juvenile crime laws, they asserted, have spurred gangs to deploy young males to carry out violence expressly because of lax punishment.
As it did in February, the stance drew the ire of defense attorneys, including the county Public Defender’s Office, which contends that mass incarceration mindsets have not improved public safety, and that youth rehabilitation efforts and community investments in education and employment are the only measures that have provably yielded positive results. They have also bemoaned the highlighting of outlier cases to counteract that reality.