Features

OAKLAND — A hotel security guard described in Alameda County Superior Court Tuesday how he watched in horror as a sheriff's deputy was hurled backward by a hail of bullets at an Outback Steakhouse in Dublin four years ago. 

Sheriff's Deputy John Paul Monego, 33, was shot and killed as he entered the front doors of the restaurant on Regional Street just before midnight on Dec. 11, 1998. 

Reuben Eliceo Vasquez, 27, of Modesto, and Turlock residents Miguel Galindo Sifuentes and Hai Minh Le, both 23, are charged with Monego's murder. Prosecutors allege that the men were robbing the restaurant at the time of the killing. 

If convicted as charged, the men could face the death penalty. 

Jeffrey DeRespini, 42, took the stand Tuesday morning in the Oakland courtroom of Judge Alfred A Delucchi. He was working near the restaurant, as a security guard at the Monarch Hotel, the night of the shooting. 

He testified for about an hour under direct examination today, explaining how he was smoking a cigarette in front of the hotel when he saw Deputy Angela Schwab arrive on the scene first and enter the restaurant. Law enforcement officers had been dispatched to the business because of a 911 hang-up call that had been placed there.