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Federal investigators, El Monte police, and L.A. County sheriff’s deputies arrested alleged members of the Quiet Village gang on Wednesday morning, naming the group in a sequence of indictments that accuse them of conspiring to commit homicide, violent crimes, and drug trafficking.
The circumstances stem from the killing of two El Monte cops final June throughout a confrontation at a motel with a member of the gang. Officers Michael Paredes and Joseph Santana have been responding to a report of home violence when Justin Flores — a documented member of the Quiet Village gang with a number of prior convictions — shot them within the head.
Within the wake of the double homicide, a joint activity power of native police and federal brokers from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has focused the Whittier area-based gang with ties to the Mexican Mafia.
A number of suspected members of the gang’s management have been taken into custody Wednesday throughout a sequence of early morning raids at houses throughout the realm. 9 individuals, together with some who have been already behind bars on different prices, are named in a sequence of indictments, considered one of which alleges violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Group (RICO) Act.
In accordance with regulation enforcement sources, who requested anonymity as a result of they aren’t licensed to talk to the press, along with the killing of the officers, the gang group and its members have been tied to not less than one different killing and one tried homicide as a part of its organized narcotics commerce.
The U.S. Lawyer, FBI, ATF, El Monte’s police chief and Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna are scheduled focus on the end result of the investigation at a information convention Wednesday morning in El Monte.
The killing of Santana and Paredes occurred June 14 final 12 months when the officers have been responding to a report of home violence at El Monte’s Siesta Inn. The officers have been capable of get the purported sufferer out of the motel room, however Flores then emerged from a toilet and shot them each within the head, police stated.
Flores stole a gun from one of many fallen officers and bumped into the motel car parking zone, the place he engaged in a gun battle with different responding officers. Authorities say he fell to the bottom earlier than taking his personal life.
The households of officers Santana and Paredes have filed litigation over the circumstances that allowed Flores to be free on the time of the shootings, alleging a mix of poor supervision by the Los Angeles County Probation Division and a plea deal that was struck in 2021 as a part of Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s broad sentencing reforms.
Flores was on probation as a part of a plea deal struck in 2021 after he’d been arrested on suspected possession of a firearm and methamphetamine. With a previous housebreaking conviction, Flores may have confronted a number of years in jail beneath California’s “three strikes” regulation.
However the prosecutor assigned to the case stated he couldn’t search the improved sentence due to considered one of many sweeping coverage modifications Gascón made on his first day in workplace, based on a doc reviewed by The Occasions.
Gascón had enacted a coverage barring strike enhancements in late 2020, however it was later deemed unlawful by a Los Angeles County Superior Court docket decide. A spokesperson for the workplace additionally stated final 12 months that the prosecutor on Flores’ case may have requested a coverage exemption in the event that they believed the defendant was particularly harmful, and that no such request was made. Gascón additionally argued that the plea deal was according to comparable presents made by his predecessor’s administration.
The Probation Division got here beneath scrutiny after a Occasions investigation revealed Flores had not obtained a single in-person go to from a probation officer for not less than six months earlier than the killings.
Within the days earlier than the taking pictures, probation officers additionally discovered Flores was allegedly in possession of a gun, utilizing medication, and beating a girl he was in a relationship with. All are violations of the phrases of his probation and will have triggered an arrest. A preliminary report by the L.A. County Workplace of Inspector Normal later revealed probation officers noticed Flores in particular person only one time through the 16 months he was beneath county supervision.
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