Steven Bryant, 23, a reputed member of the Insane Deuces street gang, opened fire, striking Martinez in the head and body

Ricardo "Ricky" Martinez Jr. was gunned down on the Northwest Side on "a night when everything went wrong," prosecutors said as a trial opened Monday for a reputed gang member charged in the slaying.Martinez, 23, had recently left the Marine Corps after two tours of duty in Iraq when he was fatally shot in April 2006 as he drove home from a Cubs game with friends.Steven Bryant, 23, a reputed member of the Insane Deuces street gang, opened fire, striking Martinez in the head and body, after mistaking one of Martinez's friends for a rival, said Assistant Cook County State's Atty. Ray Brogan. Martinez died several days later, but charges were not filed in the case until February 2007. While Bryant was imprisoned for an unrelated offense, he was recorded making incriminating telephone calls to witnesses and his mother, Brogan said. Bryant told an undercover officer that he wanted to have two women who were with him in the car murdered to prevent them from testifying against him, the prosecutor alleged.While driving home from the Cubs game, one of the men in Martinez's car realized he lost his cell phone, and a quarrel ensued, Brogan said. Martinez pulled over, and the friends got out and began pushing and shoving -- "just stupid stuff," Brogan said. As Bryant and his friends approached in another car, one of the men with Bryant mistook one of Martinez's friends for a gang rival. Bryant allegedly leaned out the car and opened fire, striking Martinez.But Bryant's attorney, Jack Smeeton, told Cook County Circuit Judge Bertina Lampkin that his client was being set up by some of the witnesses who had ties to the rival gang, the Four Corner Hustlers.

"This fallen hero, Mr. Martinez, deserves justice," Smeeton said. "But we have a criminal justice system to make sure that the person responsible for this is ultimately held responsible."

Smeeton said though his client may have made threats against witnesses, it wasn't evidence that he killed Martinez, only that he was trying to deal with "turncoat members of the gang who had lied about him."Lampkin is presiding over the bench trial and will decide Bryant's fate.