Bouncer Craig Viera
was trying to be a peacemaker when Oscar Rosa stabbed him
outside the Embassy nightclub on Lansdowne Street more than a
year ago, club employees told a Suffolk Superior Court jury
yesterday.
Several Embassy employees took the stand during Rosa's murder
trial and all described the same scene, Rosa stabbing bouncer
Viera after being tossed from the club.
Rosa, 21, is
charged with first-degree murder in Viera's death. Viera, a
Framingham man who also worked as a trainer at Gold's Gym in
Natick, was stabbed in the abdomen Nov. 26, 2006. He died 12
days later on Dec. 8.
A handful of club
security staff yesterday told jurors how Rosa and a group of
friends began arguing with bouncers inside the club and were
eventually escorted outside.
It was as the group squared off with bouncers on the sidewalk
that the stabbing occurred, former bouncer Cesar Alarcon
testified.
``Craig was
trying to calm them down - telling them to come back next week
and he would comp their admission,'' Alarcon said. ``(One of
Rosa's friends) was just mouthing off, and all of a sudden, that
kid and the other friend, they just parted and (Rosa) stepped up
between them.
``They stepped
apart, the defendant stepped up and he took a swing. It looked
like a swing at the time. As soon as he swung, Craig pushed me
and another security guard back. All of a sudden, Craig said,
`Watch out, he has a blade, he has a blade!' ''
Defense attorney
John Hayes, however, raised several questions about the
testimony of club staff, repeatedly pointing out inconsistencies
in their testimony yesterday and their testimony to the grand
jury, and hinted at efforts by club staff to coordinate their
stories to avoid licensing problems from the city.
Under
cross-examination, Alarcon described filling out an incident
report for the club about the stabbing, and described meeting
with club staff and police several days later to go over the
incident.
While he admitted
other patrons had been ejected from the club that night, Alarcon
insisted Rosa was only person he saw swing at Viera.
``Did anyone else
swing at Mr. Viera?'' Suffolk County District Attorney Rahsaan
Hall asked.
``No,'' Alarcon
said.
The three other
patrons ejected earlier in the night were two underage women and
a man who had been buying them drinks, he said. But ``as soon as
they got ejected, they got in their car and left,'' Alarcon
said.
Also testifying
yesterday were two members of the Boston Police Department crime
lab, who testified to finding blood on Rosa's clothes and a
knife found at the scene. Tests, however, showed the blood was
Rosa's, not Viera's.
That doesn't mean
the knife wasn't the weapon used to stab Viera, DNA criminalist
Monica Ammann told jurors.
In some cases,
she testified, a small DNA sample can be masked by a larger
amount of DNA.
``We do have
limits to our detection,'' she testified. ``If there's so much
more DNA from one person we might not be able to detect it.''
Rosa's trial
resumes today in Suffolk County Superior Court.
