2 Latino gang members convicted of first-degree murder of Cheryl Green, potential witness

Two Latino gang members were convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in a hate crime trial surrounding the deaths of a 14-year-old black girl and a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles.

The panel also found to be true the allegation that the girl's killing was a hate crime.

The jury deliberated for less than two days in the case of Jonathan Fajardo, 22, and Daniel Aguilar, 23, both members of the 204th street gang. Fajardo was found guilty of killing Cheryl Green because she was black.

Both defendants were convicted of participating in the murder of a potential witness, 21-year-old Christopher Ash, who the gang suspected of talking to police about Green's killing.

Fajardo and Aguilar showed no emotion, staring blankly ahead, as their families sobbed in the audience.

Green was shot in December 2006 as she stood hanging out with friends in a driveway in broad daylight. Prosecutors alleged in trial that Fajardo was agitated from an earlier confrontation with a black man when he fired into the crowd of black youngsters. Three others were wounded in that shooting.

 

Fajardo also was convicted of attempted murder for shooting at the others in the crowd.

Ash's death came two weeks later. His body, stabbed more than 60 times and wrapped in a bloody blanket, was dumped on a roadside in Carson. The gang suspected him because police served a search warrant on his apartment but released him the same day, prosecutors said.

In the two-week trial, Fajardo's attorney disputed that Green's killing, which Fajardo admitted to in police interviews, was motivated by race, calling it an "accident that rose of fear and anger" and a "rash impulse."

Green's death sparked community outrage and widespread reaction from authorities and politicians about gang violence and black-Latino tensions in the neighborhood, a narrow stretch of Los Angeles between Torrance and Carson where graffiti with racial epithets were an everyday occurrence.

The girl's death was but one of a number of slayings in the area police believe were racially motivated.

-- Victoria Kim

Comments

[Eddie]

While I am glad that they will have to pay for what they did, why do us taxpayers have to support them for the duration of their stay? They should be taken to a wall in an alley & shot like the scum that they are. Give them a dose of their own medicine!!

[Joe]

Good candidates for the death penalty, don't you think?

[Cracker]

This country needs to find an isolated island in the middle of the pacific ocean (not hawaii) and build a prison electric fence around it and put every gang member of every color and nationality on it? and get these prisons out of America? put all serious repeat criminals in it, what ever crime commited.

[Machete]

Stop the killings of innocent youth over skin color. These racist rules are made up by White,Black, and Brown career thugs in prison to gain control of drug territory. These thugs don't even care about their own race. Some of the biggest punks I've met have been of my own race. Black-Latino tensions will lead to another riot and another opportunity for these thugs to take to the streets and vandalize the city, like what's been going on in Rampart Div. over the last couple of days.

[RealityBites]

Let's start their trip to justice by giving these two parasites over to the CIA and Dick Cheney for a 6 month lesson in torture techniques with them the sample for demonstrations.

Then whats left of the parasites turn them over to the families of the murdered child, I'm sure they have some creative ideas for justice.

204th st retard gang bangers should be hunted down as the parasite worms they are and executed on sight, feral subhuman vermin don't have rights.

[Louweegie272]

Where is La Raza's condemnation of this? Where is the Mayor? The ACLU? NAACP? Seems like they're only interested in these awful hate crimes when white people commit them. Why is that?

[DavidArizona]

These two gang members are obviously being prosecuted becuase they are latinos. Rev. Sharpton and Jackson where are you? It was just a young black girl killed because of her race. Not a voter yet huh!!!

[Orlando]

So sad that we live in a society where certain things like killings or beatings are racially motivated, unfortunately thats the harsh reality especially in America where there is more races mixed than anywhere else. The fact that is a girl that was killed for this motive just makes it even more sad.

[emlio]

TO ALL OF MY RAZA: please, please sto[ this senseless violence. there is no need to target our african brothers and sisiters. there is no need to target anyone for that matter. put down the guns and embrace each other. Let all the feuds pass

[Albq Rabbitt]

Tragic and Wrong.
Those Young Killers were raised with hatred, and this is the outcome.
Now Society gets to support them, until they die of old age in prison.
$40,000/year an inmate now- What will that price tag be in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years?
Wouldn't public schools with massively expanded Art and Human Interest programs, coupled with a Child Protective Service that really worked be much 'cheaper'???
We pay either way.

[ed]

Looks like they'll be in death row for the rest of their lives.

[avril]

Justice was truly served. I protested heavily and frequently to make sure these scum did not get away with this blatant act of hatred. Take your racist ways back with you to mexico , all of you who condone coming here and choosing to move into African-American communities and thinking you can run people out as you so choose. Think again. If you can't live alongside other human beings (of other races) then go back to mexico , believe me , you won't be missed.

[Marcus Will]

Go on and rest now Cheyrl, your sacrifice has removed four murdering idiots from the face of the this civilized world. You have made the state a safer place to live, while you are remembered in time they will become a distant memory.

[Olden Atwoody]

They're not going to jail to be off the "streets". They are merely changing work locations.

These fine boys will be welcome new members for the Mexican Mafia!

[Bernadette]

This country's social system is going to the dogs, schools are cloing or being privatized, parks are disapearing, parents are working two jobs for peanuts while the 1% is screaming "socialized" and stealing you blind and you're still pointing fingers to kids growinp up in sewers created by a capitalistic & militarized society? Continue looking down and don't ask questions and watch your world generate even more violence....You people never learn.

[la rider]

"Fajardo and Aguilar showed no emotion, staring blankly ahead, as their families sobbed in the audience."

This tells it all. Families don't take responsibility for what they've sown. Pathetic.

[G]

Anyone going to prison for life for murder should be put to death..

[Sandi Beech]

I agree with your comments Avril. I only wish these two pieces of scum could be thrown into cells with black gang members rather than other mexicans, then justice would truly be served. Their crying families should have been better parents and teaching them to respect laws and other cultures. I hope they get just what the deserve in prison.

[chick]

Bernadette

I am an example of growing up poor, having unspeakable things done to me as a child. A Victim of racism and beaten by Hispanics and I have not COMMITTED MURDER. I ROSE ABOVE. Don't excuse the UNEXCUSABLE.

[the Mexican Jumping Bean]

Those kids are psych0paths...staring straight ahead as they were sentenced... No remorse! Something went wrong with their childhoods or genetically, they are disadvantaged having the "stupid idiot" gene. Betcha they were trouble at their public schools when they were young. So deeply entrenched in their paranoia, they kill for a temporary sense of security.... paranoia prompted by gang influenced delusions, creating defective humans that these kids are.