The man on trial for murder in a fatal shooting after the 2021 Puerto Rican Day celebration took the witness stand Wednesday and said he gunned down Gyovanny Arzuaga only after he saw the 24-year-old accidentally shoot his own girlfriend during a chaotic brawl.
Anthony Lorenzi said he heard a gunshot and saw Yasmin Perez, 25, slump to the pavement on Division Street as Arzauga struggled with a mob that was trying to drag him out of his SUV. As the half-dozen people that had attacked Arzuaga ran off, Lorenzi said he darted up and fired multiple shots at Arzauga as he crouched over Perez, the mother of his two children.
“I seen a male holding the gun out the door (of the SUV). He was facing in my direction,” Lorenzi told his attorney, Michael Oppenheimer.
“I seen the gun go off, and I seen her fall… I was scared. I seen the gun after a female had already died in front of me.”
Lorenzi’s testimony concluded evidence in the one-day bench trial in front of Judge Domenica Stephenson. Closing arguments are set to take place next week.
Video from bystanders’ camera phones circulated on social media in the hours after the shooting in summer 2021, and then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the killing “horrific.”
Wednesday, prosecutors played video filmed by a woman apparently drawn to her window by the sounds of the tumult after Arzauga’s SUV struck a parked car in the 3200 block of West Division Street, as well as footage from a police surveillance camera.
Also entered into evidence was the body-worn camera video from the first officer to arrive at the scene, showing the couple laying side by side on the pavement in a pool of blood, footage that drew audible sobs from some of the approximately 20 members of Arzauga and Perez’s family seated in the courtroom gallery.
Arzauga was dead at the scene, while Perez died after a few days in intensive care. The .40 caliber bullet that struck her in the neck was fired by a gun found underneath Arzuaga’s body.
Lorenzi fled the city for his girlfriend’s residence in San Diego, where he was arrested days later on a warrant while at a tattoo parlor.
While Lorenzi’s lawyers have argued the shooting was justifiable, Assistant State’s Attorney Karin Sullivan noted in her cross-examination that video didn’t show Arzuaga point the gun in Lorenzi’s direction. Lorenzi, she said, ran up to shoot Arzauga even as the mob that had attacked the couple scattered.
“You decided to get involved” after hearing Arazuaga’s SUV hit the parked car and the ensuing “commotion,” Sullivan said. “You shot him in the head, and you continued to shoot, and you shot him in the back, and you shot him in the left hip, and you shot him in the left thigh.”