Thread: Explosive Barroom Fight Is Etched in Witness’s Mind

Explosive Barroom Fight Is Etched in Witness’s Mind
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/nyregion/11bar.html

WEST ORANGE, N.J., Aug. 10 — It was a balmy Sunday night last October, and Huguito’s, a tavern that caters to this community’s thriving population of Latin American immigrants, was jumping.

The jukebox blasted salsa and merengue. The owner, Alan Torres, worked the kitchen, helping prepare Peruvian specialties like ceviche and purple yams. A few dozen patrons were crowded around the bar, and at a table a few feet away, Jose Lachira Carranza, 28, a local man whose family members were regulars, sat drinking a beer with a friend.

Then, just before 10 p.m., Mr. Carranza’s friend got into a shoving match as he approached the bar, and Mr. Carranza exploded, according to witness and police reports. He flung punches, bottles and chairs, smashing a mirror that hung on the barroom’s blond oak paneling and pummeling a group of bystanders so badly that three were sent to the hospital with cuts on their necks and gashes on their faces.

“He just went berserk,â€

If this guy is guilty of the murders and does not get the death penalty there is no justice.

This man is just full of Bush's family values!!! He should get the death penalty if convicted of the NJ murders.