01/17/2020
Mr. Bires…
First things first. This is Mark Gutglueck, with the San Bernardino County Sentinel. I am inquiring with regard to the case of People vs. Alex Opmanis. His case number is FSB19002771. Deputy District Attorney David Rabb is prosecuting the case. Opmanis stands accused of homicide in the shooting death of Sammy Davis.
Key evidence in the case are the security video footages both internal and external captured on the evening of July 11, 2019 at Goodwin’s Market at 24089 Lake Gregory Drive in Crestline. The internal footage establishes that Alex Opmanis and two of his companions, identified only by their first names, Johnny and Nuno, as well as the shooting victim, Sammy Davis and two of his companions, Robert Shuey and Shane Codman, were inside the store, the three former arriving seven or eight minutes before nine o’clock and the latter three arriving just after nine o’clock. The external video captures the events leading up to the shooting, the shooting itself, which took place at 9:14 p.m., and the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
Of issue is that the external video, which originally ran continuously, has been altered, either by your office or by the sheriff’s department prior to your office receiving it. The video has been chopped up into fragments and as a consequence numerous portions of the external video are missing. Most importantly, there is a 12 second gap on the video between 9:13:56 and 9:14:08 on the external video. The available video footage in the seconds prior to 9:13:56 appears to show the beginning stages of Davis’s physical assault on Opmanis. The available video footage that resumes at 9:14:08 shows Opmanis and Davis fully involved in a struggle. Seconds later, the shooting takes place.
Opmanis appeared this morning for his preliminary hearing. Prior to the hearing it appeared that Deputy District Attorney Rabb was purposed to utilize the video and other evidence to convince Judge Charles Umeda to bind Opmanis over for trial. Indeed, Deputy District Attorney Rabb was present in the courtroom prior to the hearing but when the Opmanis matter came up, he ducked out and Deputy District Attorney Thomas Perkins appeared for him. The court was told that the prosecution is not prepared to proceed at this time. This ran counter to a previous representation made by Deputy District Attorney Rabb that the preliminary hearing would be held today. Judge Umeda made a point of asking Deputy District Attorney Perkins about the reason for the delay. Perkins’ response was less than clear. Judge Umeda continued the preliminary hearing until January 27.
Of note is that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting – on July 11 and July 12 – the investigating agency, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, obtained the video footage from Goodwins Market, at which point it was not altered. After repeated viewings of the footage from the parking lot showing what transpired, multiple sheriff’s department personnel, including the investigators assigned to the shooting, reached the conclusion that Opmanis acted in self defense. Not only the investigators assigned to the shooting but other department personnel stated on repeated occasions that the video clearly demonstrated that Opmanis was under a violent attack.
Robert Shuey, who was with Davis during his assault on Opmanis on July 11, had a previous violent altercation with Opmanis in January 2019 in which he had beaten Opmanis severely, leaving Opmanis with diminished vision in one eye. Opmanis was pursuing a civil suit against Shuey at the time of the shooting, and according to statements Opmanis made to investigators, it was after Shuey had administered that beating and made further threats against him that he stored the handgun used in the shooting in his vehicle.
Some 29 days after the shooting, Opmanis was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting. He has remained in custody ever since.
In recent weeks, the altered video has been making the rounds. What is unclear is whether the video was altered by your office or whether it was “chopped up” prior to your office receiving it. Based on the Sentinel’s research, it does appear that your office has some footage that was not provided to the public defender’s office. Consequently, word is spreading throughout the legal community that Deputy District Attorney Rabb has altered or doctored evidence, or has engaged others to do so on the office’s behalf. I am not sufficiently steeped in the law to know if altering evidence as your office may have done constitutes a Brady violation if it is done this early in the prosecutorial proceedings as the case against Opmanis now stands, that is, before the preliminary hearing. Whether this technically qualifies as a Brady violation or not, a prosecutor presenting altered evidence against a defendant strikes me and will probably strike many of the Sentinel’s readers as improper. Sheriff’s department personnel, including ones who saw the intact video and thereby concluded that Opmanis was acting in self-defense, have said they do not believe their department would alter evidence it has gathered.
Still the same, it yet seems possible that Deputy District Attorney Rabb might not be involved in the alteration of this evidence and that he has merely been acting on the basis of an investigative file and accompanying evidence that was provided to him. There is, perhaps, an easy way for this issue to be put to rest in Deputy District Attorney Rabb’s favor, it occurs to me. First would be for him to say whether his analysis of the video included a reckoning of the degree to which the video had, generally, been “chopped up,” and, very specifically, whether he recognizes that the highly crucial 12 seconds of the video between 9:13:56 p.m. and 9:14:08 p.m. has been excised completely. Perhaps the evidence in this case was altered by someone prior to his having received it, and his engagement in other elements of the case prevented him from fully taking stock of that. Thus, he may have not fully appreciated that those critical 12 seconds of the video are missing altogether, such that his analysis of the case did not take into consideration evidence that very well would demonstrate the severity of the beating Opmanis was sustaining before he fired the fatal shot. Moreover, Deputy District Attorney Rabb may be fully conscious of the missing video passages but might also be aware of facts that together with his command of the legal issues at play here renders him confident that the missing footage in no way mitigates the guilt he is alleging on Opmanis’s part. Whatever the case, there are outstanding questions that cut to the heart of Deputy District Attorney Rabb’s integrity as well as that of the district attorney’s office related to the alteration of the video evidence. Accordingly, I have on behalf of the Sentinel some questions.
Is Deputy District Attorney Rabb fully conscious of the degree to which the video from Goodwin’s Market has been fragmented?
Is Deputy District Attorney Rabb fully conscious of the degree to which portions of the video from Goodwin’s Market are missing altogether?
In particular, is Deputy District Attorney Rabb fully conscious of the highly crucial 12 seconds of the video between 9:13:56 p.m. and 9:14:08 p.m. that is missing?
Does Deputy District Attorney Rabb consider the 12 seconds of the video missing between 9:13:56 p.m. and 9:14:08 p.m. to be of especial significance in ascertaining Opmanis’s culpability in the fatal shooting of Sammy Davis?
That is, does Deputy District Attorney Rabb believe that the shooting of Davis could in any fashion have been justified by Davis having initiated an unprovoked physical attack on Opmanis?
