ONTARIO – A 20-year-old woman accused of involvement in a recent early morning shooting of an Ontario transient hid the gun used in the attack in her bra as police closed in, according to court records.
Police didn’t discover the gun until Jasmine C. Ceballos surrendered and she was interviewed, the affidavit said.
Ceballos was one of three people who took Jose I. Cuna, 20, for a drive early the morning of Dec. 21, according to court records. A police report filed as part of an affidavit said that the pickup truck stopped along a remote road northeast of Ontario and Xavier R. Machuca, 27, asked Cuna to get out.
Cuna told police he was shot point blank in the face and that his attackers chased him. A police affidavit identified the driver as Braden J. Learned, 31, of Ontario. The affidavit said he went to a friend’s house to hide after the shooting.
The police affidavit said that Ceballos “made no attempt to stop or help the victim and she allowed the suspect to hide in her apartment.”
Police efforts later in the day to arrest Machuca led to an hours-long standoff with police at an apartment complex in Ontario. He surrendered after police fired tear gas into the second-story apartment.
Machuca has been charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault, and unlawful use of a weapon. He was being held at the Malheur County Jail on $1.1 million bail. Court records show he was convicted in 2008 in Malheur County for one count of unlawful use of a weapon and four counts of reckless endangerment and was sentenced to five years.
Ceballos has been charged with hindering prosecution and carrying a concealed weapon. Court records showed that three days before the shooting, prosecutors charged her in a separate instance with recklessly endangering another person, a misdemeanor. According a police affidavit, Ceballos fired a pistol in her apartment early the morning of Dec. 7, with the bullet going through the floor and through a mattress into the occupied apartment unit below.
“Ms. Ceballos advised that she was practicing with the pistol, loading, unloading and using the safety when the pistol discharged into the floor,” according to an Ontario Police Department report.
The report said Cuna and Machuca were in the apartment with Ceballos at the time.
Learned has been charged with hindering prosecution in connection with Cuna’s shooting and prosecutors also have moved to revoke his probation for three earlier charges of stalking. He was sentenced to 120 days in jail on those charges on Aug. 8 and was released Oct. 2, according to jail officials.