Four Sentenced in 2009 Santa Monica Slaying
Jorge Casuso (The Lookout News) | March 1, 2012
Four alleged gang members who gunned down a 20-year-old Santa Monica man at Virginia Avenue Park in 2009 have been sentenced and could serve life terms, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Patrick Dwight Birdsong Jr., 21, was sentenced Tuesday. The other three Taaj Zakee Martin, 20;
Norman Lovan Cole, 36, and Sean Alex Mermer, 31, were sentenced February 21, according to the the Sheriffs Department.
The four men were found guilty in the fatal shooting of Richard Manuel Juarez, a graduate of Olympic High School, at a crime-prone corner of the Pico Neighborhood on November 3.
Juarez was one of four individuals who were in the park when two suspects walked towards them from Pico Boulevard and began shooting, police said. The other three fled and avoided being shot.
A police sergeant driving in the area heard the shots and saw two men running from the park toward a vehicle occupied by two other men. The officer followed the vehicle, and the two suspects on foot escaped.
Police detained the vehicle and its occupants and established a perimeter to contain the two suspects who fled. All four men were arrested.
Juarez was the nephew of former City Council candidate Frank Juarez, who ran for office in 2000 after two other nephews Anthony Robert Juarez and his brother, Michael Anthony Juarez, were gunned down during a string of shootings that rocked the beachside city in 1999.
Photo credit: Santa Monica Public Library
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