SAN JOSE — When the 17-year-old accused of the Black Friday shooting at Westfield Valley Fair mall encountered trouble in the past, court records allege, he could count on two people to have his back: his older brother and his brother’s girlfriend.
Both are now charged with being an accessory to the mall shooting that wounded three people — including a 28-year-old man wearing rival gang colors and two teenage shoppers — the day after Thanksgiving, for allegedly harboring the minor until he was arrested two days later. The two of them, plus a 33-year-old man also charged as an accessory in the Black Friday shooting, pleaded not guilty in court Thursday.
But the brother, Christian Duran, 20, and his girlfriend, Allana Nevaeh Murillo, 21, were already facing charges stemming from a schoolyard melee two years ago. That’s when, according to a 2023 criminal complaint, the 17-year-old summoned his brother to James Lick High School, where he felt insulted by a classmate who told him to pull up his pants.
A group of Duran’s friends also showed up and allegedly pummeled the classmate on school grounds while Murillo stood by. When a teacher followed Murillo to her car to take photos, the complaint alleges, Murillo attacked her so violently and repeatedly that the teacher was taken to the hospital by ambulance with a concussion and bleeding eyeball.
Both Duran and Murillo were awaiting court dates in that case when they, along with their 8-month-old daughter in a stroller, went to the mall on Black Friday with Duran’s younger brother and Evan John Moniz, a father of five.
In arguing for the three to be jailed for the duration of the case, prosecutors allege that they helped the teen escape the crime scene and elude capture. But their lawyers said in court Thursday that they have not been convicted in the 2023 case and are presumed innocent. They took no part in the shooting, attorneys said, and were fleeing like everyone else when the shooting broke out.
“She was not in some clandestine location when she was arrested, she was at her own home,” Murillo’s defense attorney, Cody Salfen, said in court Thursday. “She ran, and did what any other reasonable person would do. She protected her child.”
Duran, Murillo and Moniz have all been charged with being a felony accessory in the Nov. 28 shooting. Authorities, backed by surveillance video, say a 17-year-old boy — Duran’s brother — opened fire in the crowded mall during an apparent gang-related clash.
The boy, who is charged in juvenile court with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, allegedly shot a man through the chest — miraculously causing no critical injuries — and wounded two bystanders, an 18-year-old woman and 16-year-old girl.
Murillo, Duran and Moniz were in Santa Clara County jail custody when they made their first court appearances Wednesday at the Hall of Justice in San Jose. Deputy District Attorney Daisy Altamore made a peremptory challenge to remove the case from sitting arraignment Judge Hector Ramon.
The challenge, which allows an attorney to request a different judge without stating a reason, led to the case being transferred to Judge Benjamin Williams, who ultimately preserved $125,000 bail for Murillo and Duran, and $100,000 bail to Moniz, all in line with the court bail schedule. Murillo and Moniz were out of custody Thursday, after they posted bond or the full bail, while Duran appeared in court in jail custody.
Williams then scheduled a Dec. 15 preliminary examination for the accessory charges.
Moniz had no serious criminal history in the county prior to the shooting, court records show. The bail amounts for Murillo and Duran were higher because they both have pending felony assault charges related to the Aug. 7, 2023 gang-related brawl at James Lick High School.
In a recent related motion seeking mental-health diversion instead of jail or prison time, Murillo cited post-traumatic stress from an abusive and neglected childhood and characterized the teacher as harassing her and triggering a “fight or flight” response. Prosecutors objected and wrote in their own motion that “the video evidence proves that defendant is the initial aggressor” and noted that the teacher did not fight back.
Altamore cited this history in arguing that the new accessory charges don’t reflect the full danger the three adult defendants pose if allowed to remain out of jail. That risk, she said, is compounded by their complicity in the mall shooting she argued did not just have three victims, but thousands who fled for their lives.
The rare peremptory challenge against Ramon appears to have been driven by the District Attorney’s Office’s displeasure with the judge over past decisions to grant bail or pretrial release to high-profile criminal defendants. The most recent instance was Nov. 14, in which Ramon granted supervised release to two people charged with a fatal 2017 cold-case shooting in Sunnyvale.
Ramon’s decision was challenged by prosecutors but he ultimately upheld his ruling, siding with public defenders who questioned the strength of the murder case and argued the two defendants had no violent criminal histories.
The Black Friday shooting was reported around 5:35 p.m. on a second-floor walkway near the Macy’s women’s store on the San Jose side of the mall; the other half of the property lies in Santa Clara jurisdiction.
According to a San Jose police investigation summary that cited video surveillance and witnesses, the teen suspect and three adult defendants arrived at the mall wearing red clothing and encountered a group of men wearing blue, who they associated with a rival street gang. A brief verbal altercation occurred before the teen pulled a handgun from his waistband and fired six shots, inflicting a “through and through” wound on the male victim and leg wounds to the two female bystanders.
After the defendants were arrested Sunday night, San Jose police revealed that the boy accused of the shooting was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed gun in February, and that the charge was suspended with a deferred entry of judgment contingent on him completing court-ordered rehabilitation requirements. The DA’s office has requested that judge move his case out of juvenile court and into adult court, where he could face a lengthy prison term if convicted.
Staff writer Caelyn Pender contributed to this report.