VAN NUYS : Jury Deliberations Start in Bar Shooting Case

A Superior Court jury will begin deliberations this morning in the trial of an unemployed mechanic accused of murdering one man and critically injuring another during a daylong drinking binge in a Van Nuys beer bar.

The panel heard closing arguments Monday in the case of Joe Lozano, 31, who is accused in the April 7, 1992, shooting spree in the Rack ‘N’ Tap bar on Van Nuys Boulevard.

Lozano’s 30th birthday celebration turned to horror, according to his testimony last week, when he used a handgun taken away from a suicidal friend to fatally shoot Ronald Wayne Clarke, a 26-year-old Panorama City man, and critically wound Gregory Garner, a 29-year-old Reseda man.

In his comments to the jury, defense attorney Steven Hogg admitted that Lozano was in the midst of a “drinking debacle,” but his client was in fear for his life when the victims identified themselves as members of a white-supremacist gang known as Aryan Brotherhood.

“I think you’ll see, ladies and gentlemen, these acts were in self-defense,” Hogg said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Acaldo said Lozano could not have been as drunk as he indicated because he gave a version of events that contained “crystal clear details.” Furthermore, it was ridiculous to call the shooting self-defense because he chased a wounded Garner out of the bar and fired several shots at the man’s back, Acaldo said.