BERKELEY \u2014 The suspect in a 2022 killing received an eight-year prison sentence through a plea deal with Alameda County prosecutors, ending a case where the police investigation fell under legal scrutiny repeatedly, court records show.<\/p>\n
During the prosecution of 66-year-old Claudel Moore, key body camera footage of an eyewitness interview with an officer went missing, a judge found that Berkeley police violated the defendant\u2019s Miranda rights by baiting him into an implicit confession, and the defense accused police of a warrantless search, while also referencing a sergeant\u2019s documented history of sending racist texts to colleagues. Despite the scrutiny, Moore\u2019s use of a distinctive Cadillac during the killing of 47-year-old Anthony Joshua Fisher was enough to tie him to the crime, according to court records.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere might not be two blue and white Cadillacs like that in the city of Oakland,\u201d Judge Scott Patton said at Moore\u2019s preliminary hearing last year. \u201cIt\u2019s a very distinctive, beautiful car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore was accused of fatally shooting Fisher outside a Seventh Street apartment on March 4, 2022. Fisher initially survived being shot in the head but died at a hospital four days later. The Cadillac was more recognized by eyewitnesses than Moore\u2019s face, and police later located the vehicle under a tarp in Richmond. Moore and his girlfriend were found and arrested at a Pinole hotel, the same day Fisher died, court records show. An online fundraiser by his daughter refers to him as a \u201cgoofy, loving, sensitive, teddy bear\u201d who was loved by many.<\/p>\n
Fisher\u2019s brother testified at the preliminary hearing that he saw Fisher leaving the apartment with \u201cfriends\u201d and heard a gunshot echo out from the street moments later. He rushed to the balcony and spotted two things: his brother on the sidewalk, suffering from a gunshot wound, and the Cadillac making its escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rushed downstairs to come to his aid and I looked to my left and I saw the car pull off and turn the corner,\u201d Fisher\u2019s brother testified. \u201cHe was alert. His eyes were just moving around. (I) told him to hang in there, somebody is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the shooting, Officer Alex Villarroel interviewed one of Fisher\u2019s neighbors who reported recognizing the suspect, and once again the Cadillac came into play. The witness told Villarroel that he had helped Moore jump the Cadillac at the same location just days earlier, and recognized both the shooter and the car. Villarroel\u2019s interaction with the man was captured on the officer\u2019s body camera, but the footage later went missing, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors, though, scoffed at a defense motion that accused Villarroel of deleting the footage, arguing that this was pure speculation and that the missing footage hurt prosecutors more than the defense. The eyewitness testified in court and confirmed his identification of Moore, according to the preliminary hearing transcript.<\/p>\n
Moore\u2019s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Russell Mangan, also accused police of an illegal search of the hotel where they allegedly found bullets and a revolver holster and arrested Moore. In another court filing, he accused one of the investigators, Sgt. Darren Kacalek, of racism, noting Kacalek\u2019s involvement in a texting scandal. A report by the city\u2019s police accountability board<\/a> found Kacalek made fun of a colleague\u2019s \u201cObama phone\u201d when reviewing a blurry video and on another occasion criticized a media article for not mentioning a suspect\u2019s race, adding, \u201cI guess he isn\u2019t Black.\u201d<\/p>\n Kacalek was put on administrative leave over the scandal but later returned to work, according to media reports.<\/p>\n During Moore\u2019s arrest, another officer baited him into making an incriminating statement, Judge Patton found at the preliminary hearing. When Moore demanded to know why his girlfriend was also being detained, Det. Joshua Smith said that Moore had failed to do the \u201cchivalrous thing.\u201d Moore replied, \u201cY\u2019all already know what the thing is,\u201d implying that police were aware of his own guilt.<\/p>\n That statement, Patton ruled at the preliminary hearing, was inadmissible \u201cbased on a violation of (Moore\u2019s) Miranda rights.\u201d He added that his ruling was a \u201cvery close call.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore has been formally sentenced but remains at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin for now. At Moore\u2019s Feb. 9 sentencing hearing, his daughter decried the eight-year sentence as insufficient to \u201caccount for the life my father was denied,\u201d the news site Berkeleyside reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHis murder did not just end his life. It shattered our family forever,\u201d Fisher\u2019s daughter said at the hearing. \u201cAn eight-year sentence does not reflect the gravity of the choice to purposely take his life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY \u2014 The suspect in a 2022 killing received an eight-year prison sentence through a plea deal with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[861,23791,85775,862,143,145,144,85774],"class_list":{"0":"post-180894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bay-area-crime","9":"tag-berkeley-police","10":"tag-berkeley-police-scandal","11":"tag-california-crime","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-racist-texts-police"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}