Latino gang member sentenced to death in hate-crime killing of two, including 14-year-old Cheryl Green

A Los Angeles jury returned a death penalty verdict Monday for a 22-year-old Latino gang member convicted in the hate-crime killing of a 14-year-old black girl and a potential witness in Harbor Gateway.

Jonathan Fajardo, who was 18 at the time of the killings, nonchalantly looked around the courtroom as the verdict was read.

The jury found he should receive death for both of his first-degree murder convictions for the slayings of Cheryl Green and Christopher Ash.

Fajardo was eligible for the death penalty because the jury found true special circumstance allegations, including multiple murder, killing of a witness, committing a hate crime based on race and committing the crime for a gang.

Fajardo was a member of the 204th Street gang, which prosecutors said intimidated and attacked African Americans in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles.

Green was gunned down in December 2006 as she stood on a driveway hanging out with friends when Fajardo walked up and opened fire at the group of young blacks.

Ash was found on a roadside two weeks later, stabbed more than 60 times.

Prosecutors said a group of gang members killed him because they suspected he was cooperating with authorities about Green's death.

Green's mother clutched her hands together tightly as the verdict was read and later wiped away tears.

"Justice was served for my baby," she said afterward. "I feel her here right now."

-- Victoria Kim

Comments

[Summer]

Latino Gang member! It is amazing how you throw that in there , and how hate crimes against blacks are so easily justified , yet no one reports the crimes against Latinos , how they suffered during the 70's 80's and still today.

Yes it was unjust what happen to this poor innocent little girl , but there is another side to the story. If you grew up in LA you know that black gang members target Latinos as well ! It is a shame and god forbid anyone accuse the blacks of any race crime...........

[Pedro Gambino-Gotti]

Eighty years from now he might be put to death, but hey, that's liberal-controlled Cali... Si Se Puede!!!!

[LA resident]

Good! Justice has been served!

[Bob]

The Daily Breeze showed a list of over 200 of the Los Angeles Police Departments most wanted. One hundred eighty-one of those fugitives or suspects are Latinos. It is common knowlege that some of the gang members in Los Angeles are Mexican Nationals who are fomenting violence within the gangs in various Los Angeles neighborhoods. The LASD or the LAPD should sweep these neighorhoods for control of gang members who are illegal immigrants, hence by deporting the illegal imigrants the potential for gang violence can be diminished.

[JDub81]

Meant sad story....happy ending!

[Jim Beam]

VIVA LA RAZA!

[Brian]

Too bad he will be 50 or so before he is ever put to death, if at all.

[Rick]

Wonder if we will see this on Telemundo or Univision?

[Pamela]

The death penalty takes so long to impliment not because California is "liberal-controlled" but because it will take at least 10 years to appoint counsel for the defendant's direct appeal. Actually, California's Supreme Court is extremely conservative and the draconian laws are comparable to those in Texas. California will spend so much money trying to execute this person when it would be much cheaper to incarcerate him for the rest of his life. No matter where you stand on the moral issue of the death penalty, the fact is the State of California simply cannot afford the death penalty. We're cutting education and spending $64 million on expanding death row. It just doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately, the family will not get closure for another 15 to 20 years. They would have had closure if he was sentenced to LWOP. Now the family will wait for the appeal process to be exhausted just as poor Polly Klaus' family is currently enduring.

[Warren]

Mexs are so quick to call somebody a racist if you are against illegal immigration. However, they always over look the racism in their culture. This case is a prime example of the racism in the Mexican culture.

[Max]

He is less than a gang member.

[Just Sayin!!!!]

Summer_

This should not be an attempt to get a Black and Latino rivalry going in regards to this post. It's not a competition on how far back each group has suffered. If that were the case Blacks would still win. But it is not a Title to hold, but something that needs to STOP. Are you saying 1870 or 1970? Yeah I already know the answer to that. There's always going to be two, three, four sides to a Story but only you can write YOUR Story. Make it count, and not perpetuate a problem that is already out of control. This Young innocent Girl had the right to play with her friends on a Public street without Fear. Whether she was Black, white, purple or Latino, she deserved better.

[TrueFreedom]

@summer: Seriously? Of course they had to throw in that he was a Latino Gang Member, because the main reason he was sentenced to death is because the killing was found to be racially motivated and gang affiliations!

And no, there is not another side to *this* story. This is a story about a Latino Gang member who killed a little black girl because she was black, and killed a witness because he was doing the right thing.

It would be ridiculous for the reporter to add into *this story* comments like: "even though this was Latino on black violence, there have been many other racially motivated violence in the history of LA, such as black on white, white on black, white on brown, brown on white, yellow on yellow, brown on brown, yellow on brown, ..." well, I hope you get the point.

[thecanimalshusband]

Gangs should be targeted by the U.S. Military rather than warring 10,000 miles from home in foreign wars.

[Leonard B. Jackson]

Justice moves slow but firm

[Steve Rodriguez]

Maybe the Libs and Progressives will still fight for his Amnesty rights!

[Troubled By This Stuff]

Stories like this break my heart because at the heart of most Latino and Black crime is poverty, abuse and other socio-economic ills that make its members/participants feel hopeless, angry and vengeful. Unfortunately, because it is difficult for most of these kids to focus in on the target(s) of their frustrtation, the tendency is to take it out on easy targets: those closest to you (family, neighbors and classmates) or those least likely to wage a successful defense (other racial "minorities", women, children, elderly people).

My son and I LOVE Southern California and while the fear of earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires keep many people from settling down in that area, as a parent of a light-skinned, hispanic looking young black man, my biggest fear is that he would be an innocent bystander caught up in the midst of this type of senseless crime. And at that moment, my life-long devotion to harmony, pacifism and opposition to the death penalty will be abandoned--he's my beloved only child and I would want REVENGE of the worse kind. There is a crazy, homicidal maniac inside every one of us, it's just that most have been fortunate enough to NOT have that button pushed.

Hoping this young man receives a LWOP prison sentence and that his life inside prison will be much less chaotic and violent than the one he lived outside--yes, I hope for redemption. My condolences and much respect to Cheryl and Christopher's families--they have lost their precious gifts. May the departed spirits of these two young persons shine some light and hope on the neighborhoods they leave behind.

[Adonis A Lagandaon]

I remember Cheryl Green as a smart little girl in my teaching day's I could not forget that smile and her eagerness to learn in class . At the time I was a Classroom Advisor in the GAP (GANG ALTERNATIVES PROGRAM) in Harbor city. She was always quick to to raise her hand to tell me about gang's in her neighborhood and how wrong it is to be in a gang. It's ironic that we teach so many good kid's like her out there that know to stay away from gang life and the consequence, Gang Violence end up following them and hunt them down. Such a young life with so much to live for, saddens me , That I could not teach and guide the young man who took her life , Who's life is also wasted to gang violence I wish I did ,Those young life's would not have been only but a memory.

[Jose Amigo]

This guy is an embarassment to me and the Mexican community.

[guy12345]

race is not the issue gangs are! white, latino, black, asian ,or whatever! they are all the same. they will never die....