Luis Fernando Alarcon pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned on a misdemeanor charge of inciting a riot and a felony count of throwing an object that damaged a California Highway Patrol vehicle during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rally in Costa Mesa last April.
But on Friday, the 20-year-old Anaheim resident cut a deal in the West Justice Center in Westminster, copping to misdemeanor inciting a riot and vandalism with damage over $400.
For those two counts, Alarcon received 12 days in county jail, three years of probation, a restitution order and a suspended one-year sentence behind bars.
Alarcon had been looking at up to three years in the pokey.
He was part of a group of Trump protesters who blocked the 55 freeway at Fair Drive, which prompted CHP officers to clear the area that April 28, 2016, night. The Orange County District Attorney’s office stated upon Alarcon’s arraignment that a CHP officer spotted him running toward a second CHP vehicle, coming to a stop 12 to 15 feet away and yelling “Fuck the police!”
He was said to have again yelled as he reached into his pocket, pulled out an object and hurled it at the CHP patrol vehicle, according to the OCDA, which reported that the officer heard a thud and saw what appeared to be a rock or roof tile fall to the ground. Prosecutors would tell the court the vehicle sustained more than $500 in damage.
Alarcon later stood in front of the crowd of protesters and yelled toward the CHP officers, inciting a crowd from which rocks were thrown at CHP officers, the OCDA said of the events that led up to the defendant’s arrest.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.