OAKLAND — A local resident who tracked down his stolen truck, then killed the man who’d taken it, was given a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail and end his requirement to wear a GPS ankle monitor, which he’d been doing since his release from jail in December 2023, court records show.
Jose Campos Rodas, 31, had been out of custody facing a murder charge in the May 2023 shooting death of 38-year-old Manuel Zambrano. In a plea deal with Alameda County prosecutors, Campos Rodas pleaded no contest to assault with a firearm, then was sentenced to the time he had already served. The sentence was split between the seven months he spent behind bars, and the time he was free but equipped with the GPS device, court records show.
Campos Rodas must also pay a $900 restitution fine, court records show.
The result is a far cry from what the prosecutor called “honestly premeditated murder” at Campos Rodas’ preliminary hearing. Both Campos Rodas’ lawyer and authorities agree that Campos Rodas, his father, and Campos Rodas’ brother in law followed a tracking device they’d placed on their own work truck, tracking it to International Boulevard, where the deadly confrontation occurred.
“They’ve had the truck get stolen four or five times, and then they put a tracking device on it,” Michael Cardoza, the defense attorney representing Campos Rodas, said in a phone interview. He added that their prior experience taught them Oakland police were “too overworked” to help them retrieve the vehicle, so when it disappeared again on May 14, 2023, they went looking for it themselves.
When they located Zambrano, he got behind the wheel of the trucj and attempted to flee. Cardoza said Campos Rodas fired as the car was backing out, towards Campos Rodas’ general direction, then fired three to four more times after that. Only the first shot struck Zambrano, who crashed the truck a few blocks away, then died from the gunshot wound about a week later at a hospital.
Police said at the time that Campos Rodas cocked the gun as he approached the truck then fired several shots as Zambrano attempted to get away.
“The fact (Zambrano) was shot — I’m sorry about that, but you shouldn’t have tried to run him over,” Cardoza said.
At Campos Rodas’ preliminary hearing, Deputy District Attorney Margaret Roe threw cold water on the self-defense theory.
“This is not a case of self-defense. (Campos Rodas) knew what he was going to do. He had five minutes to plan and to figure out what he was going to do when he saw the stolen truck,” Roe said.
Judge Mark McCannon upheld the murder case, stating he wanted to let a jury decide. But he dismissed an accessory charge against Campos Rodas’ father, 54-year-old Mario Campos Caceres, who’d been accused of lying to police to protect his son. McCannon said there wasn’t enough evidence “to indicate that he did anything other than accompany his son to the scene.”
Campos Rodas’ brother-in-law, Walter Sazo-Gomez, testified at the preliminary hearing that someone in their group told Zambrano to “just leave the truck.” He said he heard shooting but claimed not to have seen who fired. Surveillance footage from a nearby buffet restaurant captured the shooting, and was later seized by police, according to court records.
A week after the preliminary hearing, another judge granted Campos Rodas a release from jail on an ankle monitor. An August court filing from his final check-in before he was discharged from the eletronic monitor program says he “communicated well with program staff, was compliant with program requirements and was current in payment of program supervision fees.”
Cardoza said he was confident Campos Rodas would have been acquitted at trial.
“What are people in Oakland supposed to do? OPD didn’t respond, couldn’t respond, so people in Oakland are getting fed up,” Cardoza said, later adding that his client had a gun, “because he was afraid of how this thief might react.”