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On a Monday night in February, police said Roberto Martinez took his 14-year-old son to graffiti his son from the Pico Union neighborhood.
According to Los Angeles Police Department detectives in search warrant affidavits, they marked the names of pawn shops, laundromats and furniture stores with gang names in cans of yellow spray paint.
Driving on Normandy Avenue, Martinez and his son met Kevin Rivera, who was crossing the street, the affidavit says. The witness told police. Martinez’s son squeezed the trigger five times, shooting Rivera to death and wounding two others, detectives wrote in an affidavit.
Martinez, 43, and his son are accused of murdering Rivera, whom Martinez believed to belong to a rival gang, detectives wrote in an affidavit.
Martinez pleaded not guilty. The attorney who represented Martinez in his arrest directed the media representatives of the Los Angeles County public defense attorneys who did not respond to requests for comment. It was not clear who represented Martinez’s son.
Some gang members follow in the footsteps of their fathers, uncles or siblings, but they rarely see older relatives instructing them to commit violence, former gang members said.
Ramon Mendoza, who once belonged to the Barrio Nuevo Estradus Street Gang and the Mexican Mafia prison gang, said many gangs don’t want to take their children to a lifestyle that leads to children and prisons.
“The hardcore gang members want them to be isolated for the majority of the time, their families, innocent people, from what they are,” Mendoza said. But in rare cases, “We see the children in some kind of sick way, rather than stop them and discourage them. [violence] As a kind of bond event. ”
Court records show that Martinez has been in and out of prison since 2005 for possessing drugs and guns. Called the “Stranger,” he is a member of a Magicians Club, or a Hollywood gang called TMC, Det. James Ball of the Los Angeles Police Department wrote in an affidavit.
On the evening of February 10th, Martinez and his son were recorded on surveillance cameras tagged on stretches in Venice and Pico Boulevard, Ball wrote. Police found them running on the “TMC” and “Hellbound” side of the business.
A small crew based in the neighborhoods of Koreatown and Mid City, Hellbound is a more established gang rival called Playboy, Ball writes.
Surveillance footage showed Martinez’s son and his friends tagging the laundromat.
According to the affidavit, the group stacked up on the Black Honda Accord and traveled to Pico Boulevard and Fedora Avenue, the hearts of the Playboys territory. In yellow paint, they wrote “Hellbound” and “PBSK.” Ball writes.
About four blocks away, Rivera, 30, was walking down Normandy Avenue. Accord made a U-turn after passing him, witnesses told detectives. The suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt that police believe is Martinez’s son, was fired from the rear passenger window.
Rivera was fatally shot in the back. According to the affidavit, a man crossing the street was attacked in the waist and a woman sitting in a car was hit by a bullet.
Six days later, a prisoner called Martinez mentioned the shooting in a recorded call, Ball wrote.
“Four people fell and one died,” Martinez said, according to the detective.
The victims came from Playboy, Martinez added. Rivera’s family could not be reached for comment.
“My son did what he had to do, dog,” Martinez said on a recorded phone, according to the affidavit. “To be honest, I tried to stop him. I tried to grab a gun.”
Detectives argue that this was not true. Ball wrote that Martinez gave his son a .40 caliber Glock that was being used to kill Rivera.
Two days after Martinez was arrested on suspicion of Rivera’s murder, a Wilmington LAPD officer detained a man driving a Dodge pickup that was stolen during a home invasion robbery in Perris, Ball wrote. Antonio Alvarez is said to have thrown a .40 caliber Glock that was stolen during the pursuit.
Ballistic tests showed that the gun was used to kill Rivera, the affidavit states. A WhatsApp message on Alvarez’s phone shows that Rivera bought a Glock for $800 five days after being shot and killed, Ball wrote.
The sale was adjusted by people using phones hanging out from a cell tower near Sentinel State Jail, according to the affidavit. Ball writes that he is still investigating who brokered the sale.
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