Modesto man sentenced in road rage shooting that paralyzed man, injured pregnant woman
A Modesto man was sentenced to about half a century in state prison for a road rage shooting that paralyzed a man and also injured a pregnant driver.
A jury in December convicted Fernando Maravilla Garcia, 24, of two counts of shooting at an occupied vehicle at 10th and D streets on June 16, 2019.
The female victim recounted the ordeal on social media shortly afterward to warn other people about road rage. She was in a Toyota Scion with her 4-year daughter and her boyfriend when Garcia fired at it on that Father’s Day afternoon.
Judge Robert Westbrook sentenced Garcia on May 2 in Stanislaus Superior Court. The penalty includes 50 years to life on the base charge, plus six years and eight months for the enhancements of personally using a firearm and causing great bodily injury.
Garcia remained in county jail as of Monday because he also is charged in an April 2019 shooting that killed one man and injured two others off Crows Landing Road.
‘I feel the bullet’
Police said the road rage case started when Garcia and the victims were both traveling west on Yosemite Boulevard. The woman posted that after Garcia cut her off, she threw her hands up in the air and her boyfriend yelled, “What the heck.”
She said they were stopped side by side at a red light at 10th when Garcia fired four or five shots from his Hyundai Sonata.
“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.”
The woman’s injury was actually to her shoulder, said a news release about the sentencing from the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office. It said her boyfriend was shot in the torso and paralyzed from the chest down. The 4-year-old and the unborn child were not injured.
Arrest during traffic stop
Garcia was arrested 12 days later during a traffic stop at Litt and Plainview roads, just northeast of the city.
His trial started Nov. 9, 2021, and lasted about a month. The jury deliberated for two and a half days. Garcia also was originally charged with two counts of attempted murder. The jury also could consider a lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
Garcia could be up for parole after 25 years under California’s “youthful offender” laws, said an email from John Goold, spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office.
