#telephone pole collapse into Coffee Road Modesto California

[remembertheplunge]

A Christmas Eve Miracle

12/24/2023I can’t recall if I have blogged this story before or not. But, being that it’s Christmas Eve, I thought it would be worth writing up and publishing here today.

A Christmas Eve Miracle happened Christmas Eve 2015, eight years ago.

Since my first years of criminal law practice up until about 2019, I would act now and them as pro term judge in traffic court, meaning, I would fill in for the actual judge.

Christmas Eve 2015, I did this out in traffic court on Floyd Ave in Modesto, California.

The afternoon session ended at about 2:30pm . At the stop light at Oakdale Road and Floyd, I looked out about 2 miles to the north west to see intense black low clouds. They seemed to be in the area where two significant events in my life had taken place.

I was in a grocery story there when the Loma Prieta earth quake hit at 5:04pm. October 17, 1989. The store floor began to have a rolling motion and things fell from the shelves. I thought the roof was going to give.  And in 2013 a man was killed in front of some apartments behind the store. I would be appointed to represent Lisandro Mendosa, one of 5 codefendants charged with a gang related murder of the man. A 6 month jury trial resulted in a hung jury and a New York Times article about the trial, “”How do you define a gang member?   New York Times Sunday Magazine 5/27/2015. The trial was long and emotionally violent.

I continued my drive down Floyd Ave toward home. I decided to stop at the Star Bucks for a hot chocolate at Coffee road and Floyd. It sits across Coffee Road and a parking lot from the store I was in during the 89 quake. Just beyond and behind the store is where the man was killed resulting in the Mendoza trial.

Before entering Starbucks, I stood about 40 feet from Coffee Road and leaned my head back. Fine mist was falling now . I closed my eyes, felt the mist on my face and sent a healing prayer out across the store and the seen of the killing beyond it. 

Just then, unbeknownst to me,  about a mile west on Coffee road, a  storm related microburst caused a tree to to fall into telephone wires causing 50 foot tall telephone poles to one by one collapse into Coffee Road headed in my direction.

I finished my prayer, unaware of the collapsing poles, and walked 17 seconds to the Star Bucks. Inside , the power was out and there was a general sense of panic . The staff locked the door and wouldn’t let us out. Starbucks had no windows facing Floyd or Coffee Road, so we couldn’t see that the pole 40 feet from where I said the prayer had collapsed into the street as well the one just beyond  that I had just driven by.

Despite the fact it was Christmas Eve afternoon, and that Coffee Road is a busy four lane road, no one was hurt or killed inn the mile long collapse of polls and live wires into the road.

We had been told during the Mendosa jury trial that the trial had been cursed by people in Vera Cruz, Mexico. The man who was killed was hispanic. Not sure who placed the curse or why.

I drove to the jail after leaving Starbucks to meet with Mr. Mendosa who was incarcerated there.

I told him about the telephone pole incident and asked him if he thought it was as a result of the curse. He said he didn’t thinks so. He said he thought it was a sign he would get a break in the case. He did. In 2016, he received a 16 year sentence instead of life in prison via a negotiated plea. Recently, due to a change in sentencing laws, he was re sentenced and released!