At the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland yesterday, the lawyer representing Eric Scott Hernandez Garcia, the 18-year-old city resident accused of manslaughter in the death of schoolteacher Marvin Boomer in a collision last May, said he would request a mental health diversion for his client.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the court approves the application at the next hearing, on January 27, Hernandez Garcia would likely be released from jail and placed in a mental health program, where he would remain under house arrest or potentially be placed in a separate facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Under California\u2019s penal code<\/a>, a mental health diversion plea could include the diagnosis of a mental disorder \u201cincluding, but not limited to, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder,\u201d according to the law. Martin Cavares, Garcia Hernandez\u2019s attorney, did not specify which mental health diagnosis his client has received.<\/p>\n \u201cA court may consider any relevant and credible evidence, including, but not limited to, police reports, preliminary hearing transcripts, witness statements, statements by the defendant\u2019s mental health treatment provider, medical records, records or reports by qualified medical experts, or evidence that the defendant displayed symptoms consistent with the relevant mental disorder at or near the time of the offense,\u201d the law says.<\/p>\n The motion for the health diversion will have to assert that Hernandez Garcia does not pose a danger to public safety<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Oaklandside reached out to Cavares after the hearing to ask whether the mental diversion application indicates he will seek to have Hernandez Garcia declared incompetent to stand trial. The lawyer said that his goal \u201cat this time\u201d was to get him into pretrial diversion.<\/p>\n A collision after a CHP chase<\/p>\n Last May 28, Hernandez Garcia was approached by the California Highway Patrol because of a seizure warrant<\/a> for the vehicle from a previous instance of reckless driving. According to the CHP, officers chased Hernandez Garcia briefly and then backed off, allowing a single-wing aircraft to follow from the air. Over the next few minutes, according to the CHP, Hernandez Garcia allegedly continued driving, sped on the freeway, collided into a truck off Park Boulevard, and finally lost control of his car on E. 21st Street<\/a>, crashing into a fire hydrant that then fatally<\/a> hit Boomer, who was walking with his partner Nina Woodruff. Boomer was a beloved teacher<\/a> at Castlemont High School.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hernandez Garcia, in an orange jumpsuit and with ear-shoulder-length hair, listened intently in court on Thursday as his lawyer spoke about the case before Judge David Pereda.<\/p>\n Cavares told the court that \u200ahe had not filed a motion yet for the mental health diversion but that he would do so over the next week. Alameda County prosecutor Marisa Tagliareni said the county would object to the diversion request and would file in opposition.<\/p>\n Tagliareni noted that members of Dr. Boomer\u2019s family<\/a>, including his sister Tynesha and his partner Woodruff, were in attendance via Zoom, as was the Boomer family\u2019s attorney, Michelle Bernard. Last month, Bernard told The Oaklandside that the family was planning to sue the city and the state for negligence<\/a>, including the CHP for inciting the chase<\/a> that led to the tragedy in East Oakland<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hernandez Garcia\u2019s sister and other family members attended the hearing in person. They spoke with Cavares in the hallway outside the court afterward, where the lawyer provided them with a letter from Hernandez Garcia. They declined to speak to us, citing privacy concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cavares told us that, after consulting a medical expert, it was the position of the family and his legal representatives that Hernandez Garcia \u201chad a mental health crisis and it affected his decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n Cavares said if his motion prevails, his client could end up in a residential facility or in \u201csome kind of formal, full treatment program where he can live at home and get treatment.\u2019<\/p>\n The Oaklandside has asked Bernard about the Boomer family\u2019s reaction to the planned application for a mental health diversion. She did not immediately respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland yesterday, the lawyer representing Eric Scott Hernandez Garcia, the 18-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,21737,6996,2177,38766,9858,721,38767,143,145,144,3160,38768,27297,3278],"class_list":["post-92220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-alameda-county-district-attorney","tag-cars","tag-castlemont-high-school","tag-east-21st-street","tag-east-oakland","tag-law","tag-marvin-boomer","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-roads","tag-san-antonio-district","tag-traffic-collisions","tag-traffic-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92220","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=92220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}