OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 1: Oakland police investigate a Vallejo police officer-involved shooting at the corner of International Boulevard at 22nd Avenue on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. The suspect crashed his car after a chase from Vallejo and was taken to a local hospital. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
A Solano County Superior Court judge has vacated a jury trial and ordered a new trial setting for a Fremont man charged with trying to kill a Vallejo police officer during a 2018 Oakland gun battle following a high-speed pursuit from Vallejo into the East Bay city.
Dominic James Milano, 43, appeared Aug. 12 in Department 2 for more pretrial proceedings in the case, but Judge Daniel Healy, who earlier vacated a January trial, ordered the defendant to return at 10 a.m. Nov. 10 for a readiness conference and trial setting in the Justice Building in Vallejo.
According to official court records, Milano’s defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Nick Filloy, has filed an “opening brief” on the admissibility of various evidence.
Healy also ordered Filloy to respond to Deputy District Attorney Bruce Flynn’s response by Oct. 3. Flynn must, in turn, respond to the defense by Oct. 17.
Milano’s pending court dates follow a preliminary hearing in 2020. Afterward, Flynn decided to drop all but one attempted murder charge, agreeing with Filloy there was only sufficient evidence to charge Milano with the attempted murder of Officer Matt Komoda and not two other officers involved in the Nov. 1, 2018, chase into Oakland, where Milano was arrested.
In a brief interview after the two-day proceedings, Filloy said the DA did not have enough evidence to charge Milano with the two other felonies since a bullet — or a bullet fragment — was found in a vehicle shared by the two responding officers, a bullet that may have been a ricochet, not a round fired directly at them.
Proceedings have been delayed or postponed for a number of reasons in the past many months, among them a pending ruling on whether to grant Filloy’s request for records of arrests and prosecutions of key witnesses in the case, including at least one for a Vallejo police officer.
During the initial preliminary hearing, witnesses to the shooting in the area of International Boulevard and 22nd Avenue, where Milano allegedly began firing at officers after crashing his vehicle, described what they saw and heard.
One of them said he was unable to identify the driver in a “black car,” and, under cross-examination by Filloy, said he saw the driver of the vehicle through the passenger side of the vehicle. The witness also said he didn’t see the driver of the black vehicle fire a weapon.
Flynn called to the witness stand Brandon Graham of Vallejo, who told the prosecutor that he had called 911 on Nov. 1 after seeing Milano earlier in the day.
A day or two before the alleged crime, Graham said he had agreed to help Milano move and, at one point, the defendant had shown Graham several weapons in his possession.
He told Flynn that Milano had called him during the police pursuit and, at some point, told Graham he was not going to be captured by the police.
With the DA’s decision to pursue only one attempted murder charge, it appears Milano, a previously convicted felon, may face other counts that he was originally charged with: Illegally possessing an assault weapon; possessing prohibited ammunition; evading a police officer and being a wrong-way driver; being a felon in possession of a firearm; and possessing body armor.
If found guilty at trial, Milano may face a life sentence with the possibility of parole on the main charge and additional years on the others, with the possibility of enhancements that likely would lengthen any sentence.
The Solano County DA’s Office filed a complaint in the case on Nov. 5, 2018, according to court records.
Around 1 p.m. Nov. 1, Milano was reportedly armed and sitting in a vehicle in the Glen Cove neighborhood in Vallejo. A witness alerted officers, whose arrival on scene prompted Milano to flee. He then sped west on Interstate 80, reaching speeds of up to 120 mph as he headed toward Alameda County.
Milano allegedly fired at pursuing Vallejo police officers during the chase and, arriving in Oakland, where he crashed his vehicle, he subsequently again fired upon the officers. They returned the gunfire. No officers were injured or wounded.
At the time of the shooting, Milano reportedly was wearing body armor and in possession of a considerable cache of firearms. A search of his vehicle revealed an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, an AK-47 assault rifle, an Uzi submachine gun and two Glock semi-automatic handguns.
Solano County sheriff’s deputies arrested Milano on Nov. 12 at Alameda County Jail and booked him into Solano County Jail the same day. He remains in jail on $2.5 million bail.
Originally published at Richard Bammer