Man goes on trial for shooting outside hookah bar

By Cara McCoy

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 | 8:56 p.m.

Charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a man last January outside a hookah bar, Carlos Orellana, 24, is on trial this week in District Court.

Jurors will have to decide whether Orellana was justified when he fired the lethal shots that killed Brandon Gahagan, 21, who died in the parking lot outside the Olive Mediterranean Grill and Hookah Bar, about midnight Feb. 1, 2009, after a fight spilled outside the bar.

The business is at 3850 E. Sunset Road, near the Green Valley area of Henderson, at the intersection of Sunset and Sandhill roads.

“This isn’t a case of whodunit,” Kristine Kuzemka, one of the attorneys representing Orellana, told the jury in her opening argument Tuesday. “We all know that Carlos shot Brandon, not once but twice. This is a case where it’s a question of why.”

Orellana wasn’t involved in the fistfight, she said. But he observed his friend, 26-year-old Michael Opiola, and Gahagan, fighting in the parking lot. A couple other people were involved in the fight, too.

Orellana grabbed a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol he kept in his glovebox. He fired four warning shots and a few people scattered, but Gahagan and Opilola continued to fight.

Then a bullet struck Gahagan, who was on top during the struggle, in the back. A second bullet hit him in the chest.

“The only reason Carlos fired his gun that night was to keep his friend Mike from either being killed or suffering great bodily injury,” Kuzemka said. Under Nevada law, if a homicide is found to be justifiable or excusable, it isn’t punishable.

More than 20 witnesses are expected to testify about what they saw the night of the shooting.

Kuzemka urged the jurors to pay attention to the discrepancies in the different versions of events. The trial is expected to last through Friday.

Prosecutors say the shooting isn’t a case of defense. If Orellana is convicted of murder, he could be handed a life a sentence.

“He was the only person out of the dozens of patrons and bystanders who was armed,” Deputy District Attorney Josh Tomsheck told the jury. “Of the seven shots he fired, three of them found their mark.”

A second man, Ernesto Martinez, 20, who wasn’t involved in the fight, was shot in the shoulder and suffered a broken arm.

Tomsheck said Orellana fired the four warning shots, shot Gahagan in the back, then shot Martinez in the shoulder. Orellana then turned back to Gahagan, who wasn’t moving, and fired a shot into his chest while uttering a threat about messing with his “homeys,” Tomsheck said.

In addition to the charge of murder with a deadly weapon in connection with Gahagan’s death, Orellana is charged with attempted murder with a deadly weapon and battery with a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm for allegedly shooting Martinez.

Tomscheck said the night of the shooting, Opiola, a regular at the Olive, had been offered a job as a bouncer. He was supposed to start work the following weekend but decided to intervene when he learned a fight had broken out near the bar’s dance floor.

Opiola, who had been outside, dashed into the club and tried to pull the people who were fighting outside, Gahagan’s friend Brittney Braden testified. She, Gahagan and three other friends had gone to the hookah bar together that night for a birthday party.

Opiola put Gahagan in a headlock and dragged him outside, Braden said. But Gahagan, a former high school wrestler, slipped out of his grasp and put him into a hold. Gahagan, Braden and their friends then began walking toward their cars so they could leave, but as they were walking across the parking lot, an angry Opiola ran up and started fighting again with Gahagan, she said.

Then Orellana appeared and began shooting, she said. She testified that she watched as Orellana shot her friend.

The Clark County Coroner’s Office said Gahagan died from multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide.

Gahagan graduated from Mojave High School in North Las Vegas in 2005. Several family members sat in the gallery as the trial got under way Tuesday afternoon.

Orellana was arrested Feb. 2, 2009, and has remained in the Clark County Detention Center without bail.