Episode 10

In this episode of CRASH Luis reads the affidavit that (Betty) The girl who was in the car with him the night of the shooting gave.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, the dude jumps intomy car and I fucked up. I
fucked up. I should have neveruh taken off right. I shouldn't have
done that. But you know inthe moment, look to the man.
No trouble. I don't want tobe man. I just want vibe big
man like me. No need forthe hide. I got too much can

(00:21):
online. This is This is theaffidavit BA Thrice. The I'm gonna avoid
to read the understigned a seeing Beatricepersonally came before me. The understiging notary

(00:42):
public BA Thrice Helenton, dully swornaccording to the laws of the State of
California, does make an oath oftruth to the following affidavit statements. My
full legal name is Bia Thrice.My day of birth is December fourteen.
My cellar number is my California driver'slicense number is My city of birth is

(01:03):
Guanajuato, Quo. I am notunder the influence a prescription addication, alcohol,
legal or illegal drives at the timeof this statement. I know Louis
Salinas from the neighborhood I grew up, and I have valuable new information to
bring forth in the case of peopleof the State California Universus Luis Meya Salinas,

(01:23):
Los Angeles, apparent Court case numberBA two seven, eight h one
eight. I'm coming forward today tobring forth this new information because it's been
a long time that Ruis Salinas hasbeen incostrated, and he is an innocent
man. On the night of theshooting January twenty nine, two thousand and
five, I was with Luis sellingus. We were in a car,

(01:46):
drinking a beer, each talking,getting to know each other a little better,
and listening to music. He wasin the driver's seat and I was
in the passenger seat. We werethe only two in the vehicle. I
don't know any you know about cars, so I can't tell you the maker
model of the vehicle. We heardgun shots, which is a daily thing
that happens around the neighborhood near wherewe grew up. I don't remember how

(02:09):
many gun shots I heard what itwas at least the puple I got scared
and jumped out of the car.I did not see anyone shooting all and
heard the shots. I ran intoa building and told Louis I had to
go because I was scared. Then, when I felt safe, I walked
home, which was two or threeblocks away. Every time something like that

(02:31):
happens, I always stay away fromthe situation. If I remember correctly,
we were on a Wimer Street inLos Aerengeles. But a few weeks later
I found out Louise was incarcerated forthe shooting. I know for a fact
it was not Louis Selina's who didthe shooting, because I was in the
vehicle with him when we heard theshots. If I has to testify in

(02:54):
a court of law about the statementsin this after David, I would be
willing to do so. I'd bea three swear under the penalty of perjury.
One of the laws of the stateof California that the information I provided
in this after day is of myown free will, and the statements made
hearing are true and correct based onmy own personal knowledge. And this was

(03:15):
on on Made thirteen, two twentyone. So Betty, like I said,
Betty, you know, I knewher. I knew her from the
from the neighborhood she lived. Shelived down the street. She was always

(03:37):
you know, around, I alwaysalways sorter. We kind of talked,
but we never actually h did anythingtogether. Because you know, she had
been with one of one of myfriends, and you know, so recently
we had jears. Bredy started talking, you know, so we were Birdie
getting to know each other, andyou know it was burly Birdly kicking it

(03:58):
off. So and she was withme. And after that happened, you
know, I had reached out.I had reached out and I had asked
if she would she would come quartered, but and she didn't want to.
You know, she said she didn'twant to be involved with that, that
she was scared, you know thatwhat if what if they were what if

(04:20):
the rap part was to retaliate againsther and get her deported. She didn't
have little papers. And so Ididn't push. I didn't push. I
just left alone. I just pulledit. Okay, don't worry about it,
man, I understand because at theend of the day, you know,
I knew she was right. Youknow, It's like they could have

(04:42):
easily uh gone after her. Youknow, we grew up in the hood
like we see that all the time. You know. So I just left
alone. I just feted the wall, you know, even without her,
like I should still be able toprove that it wasn't me, just because
you know, the victim, ifhe was to say what the guy was
wearing, what the guy looked like, you know, he's not gonna identify

(05:08):
me because it wasn't me. SoI went forward with it. But later
on, you know, after aftergetting convicted and several years passed, I
try to reach out again, youknow, try to reach out again.
And then I think it was likein two thousand, maybe two thousand and

(05:29):
eleven or two thousand and ten,somewhere around there. You know, she
had said yes, that she wouldtalk, but she still didn't want to
go to court, but she saidthat she was willing to talk to the
to the investigator. So you know, my attorney sent the investigator to speak

(05:49):
to her, and I believe theydid talk. But I don't know.
I don't know what happened with that, with that interview or with that.
I never got it. I neveractually got a copy of it or what.
But because around that times when misterJake actually just kind of left my

(06:13):
case. He didn't tell me nothing, He just dropped my case and he
became a judge. So my caseskind of left there. But like I
said, I hired him in twothousand and seven and and he had my
case and all the way up intotwenty and thirteen, and nothing never came
over it. You know, wepaid a fifteen thousand dollars and nothing ever

(06:35):
came over it. Besides besides thoseinterviews, and you know, we had
also paid him some money to hirea gang expert because I wanted to fight
the gang allocations and to prove thatI was not an active gang member.
You know, they could say thatI was a member of a gang,
but they couldn't say that I wasactively you know, that I was out

(06:58):
there committing crimes, aimes or howthey're doing things that an active game member
does, because that's not what Iwas. You know, I was no
longer a game. I was nolonger in that night stuff. So we
had paid him for that and henever hired one. And we also paid
him for a ballistics SECTIPERT because wewanted to get another another, another test

(07:24):
of the bullet, because like Isaid, the original test they had said
that it was more than likely likea ten milimeter, and then the second
test the guy said, oh itwas a forty four only because he's seen
a showcasing, not because of somescientific evidence, but because he's seen a
showcase, and so he automatically assumesthat it must be a forty four if

(07:46):
there's a showcasing, right, Butthey didn't actually have no testingness, so
we paid for that too, butthat didn't happen, so, you know,
it was just it was just fuckingto me. It was just like
a waste man because you know,nothing nothing came of it. All that

(08:07):
money down the dream and then nothingso for it. But yeah, now
in twenty twenty one, they gota hold of Betty again, and this
time she said, nowhere, youknow, it's been so long that you
know, a very fat At verybeginning, she wasn't kind of willing to
do it right, She didn't wantto testify or nothing like that, so

(08:30):
she didn't want to sign nothing.She was just saying, I'll talk and
I'll tell you what happened. Butyou know, I don't want to sign
nothing. I want to go tocourt. But then I guess the investigator
kind of kind of stop stop toher and explained to her that you know
now that more than likely, youknow, everything should be fine, like
they shouldn't be able to deport herbased on that, and so she said

(08:54):
okay, and she did she did. She did the little interview and she
she signed after David and that wasthere. She says she was willing to
go to court and anything. Sothat's my alibi witness. And then I
got the profession convector, and thenI got the Also William toll Are saying,
you know, basically that he neverhe never, he never actually seen

(09:20):
the face of the person at Shalomon, and he describes what the persona wearing
them That's not what I was wearing. And you know, you would think
that this is enough to reopen thecase, just to real not even to
overturn my case off the bat,but just to reopen it, reopen it
and evaluate the evidence and see ifthis evidence is good enough, which I

(09:43):
mean it should be, because there'sother cases of other people that have been
released with less. You know,somebody had testified against you, said it
was you, and then came backand said, you know what, I
was lying, and they released them. So it's possible for announced like they
were looking at the case, youknow, just just based on the prosecution,

(10:03):
the prosecution's theory, and the prosecution'sevidence. You know, you're gonna
you're gonna think right way, I'mlike you know. Yeah, man,
it's there's too much, there's toomany coincidences or it looks too much.
Uh. The evidence is all there, you know. And I don't blame
him, you know because even whenI was in trial and I'm listening to

(10:24):
this da you know, talk tothe jury, and I'm listening to everything,
and even in my own mind,I'm like, man, if I
was on the jury, I wouldsay guilty too. But because there was
no there was no uh, therewas no defense to crack to crack calls
in that in that theory, therewas no defense to to uh. You

(10:45):
know, let the jury see adifferent a different look, you know.
M But you know, I wasjust at the wrong place at the wrong
time. Man. Uh. Youknow, the the dude jumps into my
car and I fucked up. Ifucked up. I should have never taken

(11:05):
off, right, I shouldn't havedone that. But you know, in
the moment, in the moment ofit, and you know, I had
been also, I had been drinkingand stuff, and you know, I
actually had done some Like I saidthat, I'd said before that I was
supposed to go to work at sixin the morning, you know, So
at that time, man, Iused to drink and I also used to

(11:26):
use uh nine, you know,so I had I was kind of high
a little bit, and just everythinghappened so fast, and you know,
there's there's no excuse, man,it is what it is that happened,
you know. But I wish Iwouldn't have done it. I regretted.
I wish I would have I wouldhave never taken off, but I did.

(11:46):
I panicked and I got into ahigh speed chase. And that's what
I think. That's the main thingthat that really made made me look guilty,
you know. And then the wholething with those bullets, man,
those bullets, Like you gotta understandthat this is a very active street.
You would have to live there,you would have to you would have to

(12:07):
see an experiencehip for yourself. Man. But on the daily, there's shootings
every day, man, there's andit's not it's not the guys who lived
there doing the shootings. No,it's if if guys coming in the duce
from eighteen Street from these other games, coming in hunting looking for somebody to
kill. It's constant, man,foods are getting caught slipping. You know.

(12:30):
I know a lot of guys whogot killed. So you know when
when this happened, like right rightbefore this, this occurred, right and
like I said this, and duringthat week alone there there had been several
shootings and me, myself, Iwas almost shot. And you know that
one of the guys had asked me, he said, look, I need
some bullets, man, do mea favorite bibles bullets for me because you

(12:54):
don't have a record and they askyou for your ID. So you know,
I said, hey, that's anotherstupid thing. I think I shouldn't
I shouldn't have done it, right, But in my mind, I'm like,
shit, man, like this isfor its survival, right because I
know for a fact that these dudesare coming in and killing man and people
are dying. So in my mindis like, yeah, I'm gonna do

(13:18):
it. Man, I'm gonna helpyou. You know, I'm gonna help
you and everyone else on the onthe street. So I went and I
bought those bullets, you know.And actually they had even saved me,
man, because that day that Ialmost got shot, whoever was on the
block that day they shot back atthat color that was shooting at me,
you know, so I could haveeasily been there that day. So I

(13:41):
kind of still felt like, youknow what, I'm gonna go ahead and
do this for them, you know, you know, thinking back on their
hindsight, it was it was done. But man, you know I knew
that that I was helping them,and and that's all that that's all that
I need at the moment, youknow, that's all that I thought about,
Like, hey, if I couldsave your life on my save your

(14:03):
life man, because that was me, that wasn't That was the type of
person that I was. I wouldalways always jump jump in and always man,
I would not hesitate, you know. You know, certain several situations
where I saved some of my wholeboy in life. You know, if
it wasn't for me, they wouldbe dead, you know. So I

(14:24):
didn't think about it. I didn'thesitate. I just did it, you
know. So you know now thatnow looking back and of course that that
right there was was bad, youknow, and it makes me look you
okay, But the truth is,you know, there was only one guy
and they had nothing to do withthat gun. They had nothing to do
with those bullets. And the guyconfessed to it, you know, and

(14:50):
that's the truth. That's the wholetruth. That's nothing But the truth right
there, man, the victim saysit himself. You know, I just
got caught up in a in abad city situation, and everything looked everything
looked bad on me. You know, everything looked bad on me. But
the truth, the truth is thatI'm innocent. I never had a gun,

(15:13):
I never fired a gun. Inever was involved in the shooting.
I never had any knowledge of theshooting. You know, I had nothing
to do with it whatsoever. Itjust it just happened to be my love
that night that this dude decides tojump into my car. And even the
whole time, I've always thought,why the hell did you shove in my
car? Man? Why you liveon that street? You know, you

(15:35):
could have easily ran into years ofyour apartment, You could have easily ran
into another building. I don't knowanything, and I've always thought about that.
I always thought about that, andyou know, it just it fucks
with me, definitely fucks with me, you know, And I leave in
regret. I leave it regret.But that is what it is, man.

(15:58):
It was the and it's done,and and you know, all I
can all I can do is isjust hope that the truth sets me free. H