Modesto man convicted in road rage shooting that paralyzed man, injured pregnant woman
A Modesto man who shot into a vehicle during a road rage incident, paralyzing a man and injuring his pregnant girlfriend, is facing 60 years to life in prison after being convicted by a Stanislaus County jury last month.
The woman’s 4-year-old daughter was also in the vehicle during the shooting on Father’s Day 2019 but was uninjured. The unborn child also was not injured.
Fernando Garcia, 24, was convicted of two counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle with enhancements for personally using a firearm and causing great bodily injury, according to a press release from the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office.
The female victim posted about the experience on social media to warn others.
The couple and the child were traveling west on D Streets in downtown Modesto when Garcia, driving a Hyundai Sonata, cut them off.
The victim wrote that she threw her hands up in the air and her boyfriend yelled “what the heck.”
She said they stopped side by side at a red light at 10th Street when Garcia fired four or five shots into their car.
“I feel the bullet go through my neck and see my glass shattering all over us,” she posted. “I wait for one to hit my head and end my life completely. My 4-year-old daughter in the back seat, taking a nap, she wakes up confused.”
She said her boyfriend was shot in the spine and, according to the press release, was paralyzed from the chest down.
Trial in the case started Nov. 9 and finished about a month later.
The jury deliberated for two and a half days before returning guilty verdicts on the two counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle, according to a press release. Garcia was also originally charged with two counts of attempted murder and the jury could also consider a lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
Garcia’s attorney, Martin Baker, said the jury acquitted on both charges with respect to the female driver but were hung on a decision about the male passenger. He said the jury was divided between the greater count and the lesser count.
Garcia remains in jail pending a sentencing scheduled for March 11.
He is also being held in another shooting that occurred several months before the road rage incident.
Garcia was in jail on the road rage shooting when prosecutors charged him with an April 14, 2019, shooting that left one man dead and two others injured off of Crows Landing Road.
According to online court records, Garcia has been held to answer on charges of murder and attempted murder and is awaiting a jury trial that is supposed to be scheduled on the same day he is to be sentenced in the road rage shooting.
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
