Opening statements scheduled in Coachella carjacking, shooting trial

Opening statements are scheduled today at the trial of a 22-year-old ex-con accused of carjacking an Army reservist at gunpoint in Coachella and shooting her in the hand.

Alejandro Flores Magana is charged with carjacking, assault with a gun, vehicle theft, receiving stolen property and being a felon in possession of a firearm, along with numerous sentence-enhancing allegations of inflicting great bodily injury and criminal street gang activity.

Magana is accused of shooting Jasmine Vera, then 19, at 4:22 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2015, while she was waiting outside her aunt’s Coachella apartment in the 53500 block of Harrison Street. Magana allegedly approached the driver’s side window, his face masked by a black bandana, brandished a black pistol and told Vera, a private first class in the U.S. Army Reserves, to “get off the car” before firing a shot through the window, according to court documents. The bullet struck her right hand.

She ran from her attacker, who drove off with her car, according to prosecutors.

Magana was arrested nearly two weeks later at his home. He allegedly admitted the carjacking to sheriff’s deputies, but said that he was drunk and high on drugs at the time and described the shooting as accidental, saying he didn’t know how the gun went off, court records show.

Magana was previously charged with attempted murder in connection with a 2013 shooting, but that charge was dropped after he pleaded guilty to assault. He was sentenced to nearly five years in prison but was released just over a year later, about two months prior to the alleged carjacking.