Gang member sentenced to 25 years, 4 months for hate crime
Black family in Glassell Park
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—A 19-year-old Latino man was sentenced today to 25 years and four months in state prison for threatening a Black family in Glassell Park with a shotgun while shouting racial epithets.
Ivan Alquicira was convicted of three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of making terrorist threats, with enhancements for hate crimes, gang involvement and firearms possession.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus ordered Alquicira to serve consecutive terms on each of the assault counts. Marcus stayed the sentence on the other two counts, ruling that Alquicira had the same criminal objective in making those threats as he did in assaulting his victims.
Alquicira yelled racial epithets and derogatory comments at the three victims—a man, a woman and her 7-year-old son—while standing on his apartment balcony in the 3100 block of Estara Avenue on the evening of March 26, according to Deputy District Attorney Amy Ashvanian.
He pointed a shotgun at the family—who had just come from the boy’s school—and then chased them when they ran from the scene in fear.
Officers from the LAPD’s Northeast Station surrounded Alquicira’s apartment complex after he went back inside and refused to come out. He surrendered nearly two hours later and police recovered a shotgun, an additional weapon and ammunition, according to trial testimony.
Though he never fired the shotgun, Ashvanian said Alquicira was trying to drive the victims out of Glassell Park.
“They left that night and never went back to their house,” the attorney said.
“When you take race and gangs and guns, it’s not a good combination,” Ashvanian said. “It really terrorizes the neighborhood.”
In 2006, five members of Alquicira’s gang were convicted of federal hate crimes for a deadly campaign of attacks on Black residents meant to force them out of predominantly Latino Highland Park. Three Black men were killed in three separate attacks.
“It’s not just waving a gun,” Ashvanian said of Alquicira’s assault on the family. “He did this for the benefit of a gang. It’s not a severe sentence for what he’s done.”
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Jurors deadlocked today in the trial of a reputed gang member charged in the 2010 Halloween killing of a 5-year-old South Los Angeles boy who was shot while showing off his Spider-man costume in his backyard.
Superior Court Judge Bob S. Bowers declared a mistrial after the jury’s foreman said the panel was not able to reach a unanimous verdict in Leonard Hall Jr.’s trial.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—A state appeals court panel today ordered a new sentencing hearing for a gang member convicted of killing a 16-year-old honor student after opening fire on a crowd of people following a homecoming football game in Long Beach.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal sent the case against Tom Love Vinson back to Long Beach Superior Court Judge Mark Kim for re-sentencing.
Lancaster mayor R. Rex Parris, an attorney, and the Malibu law firm Shenkman & Hughes have joined together in a suit against the city of Palmdale under the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA). The case, filed on behalf of plaintiff Juan Jauregui, seeks to end Palmdale’s at-large system of electing city council members in favor of geographic council districts.
Civil rights activists and other community leaders called for hate crime charges on Monday against gang members suspected in attacks on an African American Compton family and threats against other Black residents.
The attacks sparked a rally at Compton City Hall after two men—reportedly from a Latino gang—were arrested for harassing and threatening a family to move out of the neighborhood because of their skin color.
INGLEWOOD, Calif.—A boy in a stolen car led officers through Inglewood and other South Bay cities today in a meandering two-hour pursuit during which he crashed into a police cruiser, then drove over some spike strips and was arrested, police said.
The pursuit started at Manchester and La Cienega Boulevards in Inglewood at 11:06 p.m., when officers attempted to stop a gold Toyota Camry stolen in Inglewood and the driver refused to pull over, said Inglewood police Sgt. Brian Hand.
