A Superior Court judge on Tuesday, March 15, ordered an Anaheim man to stand trial in connection with three BB gun shootings that shattered car windows in Riverside and Norco in 2021 after an investigator testified that Jesse Leal Rodriguez confessed to “copycat” crimes that mirrored some 100 similar attacks that April and May throughout Southern California.

Riverside County District Attorney Senior Investigator Christina Guillen testified that Rodriguez, 35, told her it would be “cool” if he could get away with the three shootings, just as someone had apparently avoided arrest in a shooting spree that terrorized motorists and damaged 50 vehicles in the Riverside area and what a court document said were “dozens of others” along the 91 Freeway in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

But at the same time, Guillen testified in the preliminary hearing at the Hall of Justice, Rodriguez said he committed the shootings in the hope of going to jail, where he believed he could more easily ride out the pain of a separation from his “significant other.”

No arrests have been announced in the other shootings. No serious injuries have been reported.

“He stated that he was not responsible for all of them, but was responsible for three of them. His exact wording was ‘copycat,’ that basically he was going to do what he saw on the news,” Guillen said.

Rodriguez faces three counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault capable of causing great bodily injury and three counts of assault with a deadly (non-firearm) weapon. He is due to be arraigned on May 24. Attorneys told Judge Randall S. Stamen that they sought an extended break in the case to possibly work out a plea agreement.

Defense attorney Roger Chien sought to have the charges dismissed for lack of evidence on several fronts.

He argued in a separate hearing earlier Tuesday that investigators illegally continued to question Rodriguez after he asked to speak with his attorney. A lie-detector test, which Chien said was a continuation of the unlawful interrogation, resulted in Rodriguez confessing after the examiner detected deception, a court filing said. The DA’s response to that motion said Rodriguez agreed to talk even after invoking his Miranda rights.

Secondly, Chien asserted that the shooting out of car windows did not amount to attempted murder. Rodriguez, if he was the shooter, aimed for rear windows away from any drivers. Chien also unsuccessfully attempted to elicit testimony from California Highway Patrol Officer Jerry Martin that a BB shot from a distance is not capable of killing anyone. Stamen upheld a prosecution objection on technical grounds.

Deputy District Attorney Phillip Joo disagreed with Chien’s theory, noting that the shots were fired at the same level at which a person would be sitting in a car.

“This isn’t just throwing rocks at a parked car,” Joo argued.

Stamen barely paused after the attorneys finished before ordering Rodriguez held for trial. He is jailed at Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning in lieu of $1 million bail.

On the morning of May 25, 2021, testified CHP Officer Lynn Peters, a motorist identified a faded Maroon Chevrolet Trailblazer with no license plates as being near her car when a window was shot on the 91 Freeway near Tyler Street in Riverside. Later that day, a driver with two passengers on the Hidden Valley Parkway overpass at the 15 Freeway in Norco videotaped a similar SUV in the area at the time his back window was shot out, Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Lucifora testified.

Rodriguez was arrested at about 9:45 p.m. in a McDonald’s parking lot near Tyler Street that night after several motorists reported that someone in a similar SUV shot out their windows. CHP Investigator Daniel Perez testified that he found a Colt Defender .177 air pistol, as well as several packets containing at least 10 BBs each, in Rodriguez’s Trailblazer.

Guillen testified that Rodriguez initially told her that he had the BB gun after taking it away from his son, an assertion he would repeat days later in a jailhouse interview with a Southern California News Group reporter. But he later admitted to investigators that he bought it himself for $60, Guillen said.

Rodriguez was convicted of firearms violations in Orange County in 2010 and 2012, court records show.

“He stated that typically when he gets arrested he lies to police, but the truth comes out,” Guillen testified.

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