GANG MEMBER GETS LIFE FOR MURDERS.Byline: RICK COCA Staff Writer Months before he gunned down two teenage brothers, Canoga Park Alabama gang The Alabama Gang was the nickname for a group of NASCAR drivers who set up shop and operated out of Hueytown, Alabama, near Birmingham, Alabama.[1] In the late 1950s, young auto racer Bobby Allison left Miami, Florida, looking for an area that had more member Saul Rivera made the first of a series of mistakes that would put him in prison for the rest of his life -- he asked a cop to run the serial number on a gun. On Thursday, that misstep and other evidence earned him life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders of 16-year-old David Zapata and his brother Miguel, 15, outside a Canoga Park restaurant Feb. 2, 2005. In November, Rivera, 18, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and other weapons charges. In a separate trial in October, his accomplices, Jesse Martinez, 18, and Richardo Martinez, were sentenced to 100 years to life and 50 years to life, respectively. Rivera was tried as an adult but was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a minor at the time of the killings, prosecutors said. Months before the shooting, Rivera approached Los Angeles School The Los Angeles School of Urbanism is an academic movement emerged during the mid-1980s, loosely based at the University of Southern California and UCLA, that poses a challenge to the dominant Chicago School of Urbanism. Police Department Officer Rudy Perez on the Canoga Park High School Canoga Park High School is a public school located in Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California, USA, within the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is located right across the street from the Topanga Plaza shopping center. campus because he wanted him to check out a serial number on a handgun he wanted to buy but wanted to make sure it wasn't stolen. "I told him, 'You shouldn't be messing with guns,'" Perez said Thursday. Perez ran the serial number but never told Rivera that the 9mm handgun was clean. The day of the killings, Rivera and the two Martinez boys, who are not related, approached the Zapata brothers outside a Wienerschnitzel at Sherman Way and De Soto de So·to , Hernando or Fernando 1496?-1542. Spanish explorer who landed in Florida in 1539 with 600 men and set out to search for the fabled riches of the north. Avenue. After discovering the brothers claimed Temple Street, another San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. gang, Rivera, then 16, shot the boys with the 9mm gun. Perez received a call from Detective Rick Swanston after Rivera and his accomplices were arrested. A woman had followed the boys after the killing and led police to where they discarded dis·card v. dis·card·ed, dis·card·ing, dis·cards v.tr. 1. To throw away; reject. 2. a. To throw out (a playing card) from one's hand. b. the gun. Swanston knew Perez had information on Rivera and the Canoga Park Alabama gang and told him Rivera was in custody for a double homicide homicide (hŏm`əsīd), in law, the taking of human life. Homicides that are neither justifiable nor excusable are considered crimes. A criminal homicide committed with malice is known as murder, otherwise it is called manslaughter. . "'Hey,' he said to the detective. 'By any chance was it a 9mm Glock?' And I stated the serial number, and he was just surprised and said, 'How do you know that?"' For the Martinez family, Rivera's sentencing brings them little solace. "We've got to stop the violence of all these gangs," said Denise Zapata, the boys' mother. rick.coca@dailynews.com (818) 713-3329 |
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