March 13, 2007

Gang Member Sentenced to 40-Years-to-Life in Prison for Shooting at LAPD Officers

LOS ANGELES – A gang member was sentenced today to a 40-year-to-life prison term for shooting at Los Angeles police officers and wounding one of them in the hand at a Hollenbeck area apartment complex nearly two years ago.

Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Sparagna of the Crimes Against Police Officers Section (CAPOS) said 21-year-old Rodrigo Perez was sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judith L. Champagne, who presided over the defendant’s trial earlier this year.

Sparagna said Perez, an 8th Street gang member, fired into a group of eight Los Angeles police officers gathered in the parking lot of Estrada Courts Apartment around 3 a.m. on July 3, 2005. The officers were there completing a carjacking investigation.

She said Perez was the passenger in a car that drove by the officers. He fired at the officers with a semiautomatic machine gun, hitting Officer Alex Fuentes in the hand.

Bullets from the drive-by shooting went through the living room and into the kitchen of a nearby home. No one in the house was hit.

Perez was arrested in February 2006 by Los Angeles police and has been held on $5 million bail since his arrest. He was convicted by a jury on Feb. 9.