Bloody fight in San Marcos goes to court

“This is a mess,” said judge Harry Elias, commenting on a bloody street fight that happened last October in San Marcos; the matter came before his court January 14.

The alleged victim, Elvis Gonzalez, claimed that he was struck in the head by a man who had tried to open the passenger-side door of his mini-van while it was parked outside his home. (Gonzalez said he has tinted windows on his van.) Gonzalez said he got out of his van to ask, “What are you thinking?” But when he turned his back, Gonzalez said, “I got struck with something.”

The man accused of felony assault, Jesse David Rodriguez, 29, claimed he accidentally approached the wrong vehicle at the curb. When he realized his error, he said he backed up and apologized but was attacked.

Rodriguez came out of a home on the 200 block of Avenida de Suerte after 9 p.m. on October 17, 2013. Rodriguez was looking for a woman who was supposed to pick him up; it would be their first date. But the woman apparently had already come and gone from the residential cul-de-sac, according to testimony. The woman was approached by Gonzalez and found him so “weird” that she drove away, according to a deputy’s report. She never saw Rodriguez.

Gonzalez confirmed that he had been drinking, “I was buzzin’ [but] I wasn’t drunk-drunk.” He told the judge he had consumed a 40-ounce bottle of Hurricane Malt Liquor. “Beer is beer, basically.”

When officers arrived, they found a broken beer bottle with blood on it and Gonzalez with wounds to the side of his head that required more than 30 stitches. San Diego sheriff’s deputy Adam Hipschen said Gonzalez was intoxicated, in his opinion.

“The victim in this case is just a liar,” defense attorney Ken Elliott asserted. The defender alleged that Gonzalez has a criminal history of violent altercations and suggested that the aggressor was Gonzalez — not defendant Jesse Rodriguez.

Judge Elias reduced two felony charges to a misdemeanor and set another court date for Rodriguez in February.