Three street-gang members were sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms Friday for the robbery and fatal shooting of Los Angeles Police Department Officer Fernando Arroyos, who was gunned down in January 2022 while off-duty and house-hunting with his girlfriend.
The defendants -- Luis Alfredo de la Rosa Rios, 30; Ernesto Cisneros, 25; and Jesse Contreras, 36 -- each pleaded guilty in July 2023 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Rios and Cisneros were both sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison, while Contreras received 35 years.
A fourth defendant, Haylee Marie Grisham, 21, a gang associate who was Rios' girlfriend, pleaded guilty last year to one count of violent crime in aid of racketeering for participating in the fatal robbery of Arroyos. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 9 in downtown Los Angeles.
"No one is immune from the impact of gun violence," U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said during the sentencing hearing in downtown Los Angeles.
"... Gun violence can strike wherever you are, even in Butler, Pennsylvania," he said, referring to the scene of the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.
On the night of Jan. 10, 2022, the defendants were driving around the Florence-Firestone area of South Los Angeles looking for someone to rob when they came upon Arroyos, who was wearing gold chains around his neck, according to plea agreements filed in L.A. federal court.
Rios and Cisneros exited a black pickup and confronted Arroyos, a three-year veteran of the LAPD, and his girlfriend as they were searching for a home to purchase in the area.
The two gang members pointed guns at the victims and removed property from both, including a wallet and two silver chains from Arroyos' neck. At some point after Cisneros removed Arroyos' chains, the off-duty officer and the gang members exchanged gunfire, court documents show.
Arroyos sustained a single gunshot wound, ran from the area and collapsed in an alley as the two defendants left the scene in the truck.
Responding law enforcement officers found bystanders performing CPR on Arroyos. The officers loaded Arroyos into a patrol car and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Detectives retrieved a loaded handgun from the scene belonging to one of the suspects, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department received a report of a man suffering from a gunshot wound in the area of Junction Street and East 60th Street about a mile-and-a-half from the site of the shooting.
Investigators later determined the wounded man was Cisneros, who had sustained the gunshot during the shootout with Arroyos. Contreras was also found in the area hiding inside the garage of his residence in the 5900 block of Junction Street, where a second handgun was retrieved.
Rios and Grisham -- who were then a couple -- were later found and taken into custody at their home.
Rios and Contreras further admitted in their plea agreements to committing armed robberies against two victims outside a bar in the Florence- Firestone area earlier the same day.
The defendants each could have faced up to life in prison, but prosecutors agreed to seek terms of between 35 and 50 years in prison for Rios and Cisneros, and the term of 35 years for Contreras.
"This case starkly illustrates the devastating impact of gangs on our community," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement after the three gang members pleaded guilty.
"A young man who had achieved great success and returned to serve his community as a Los Angeles Police officer was murdered while shopping for a home in the city he took an oath to protect. These senseless tragedies are repeated too often. Our work in this case sends a message that we will aggressively prosecute violence against our community."
Then-L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva indicated at the time of the arrests that he directed detectives to take the case to federal prosecutors because of his opposition to District Attorney George Gascón's decision to no longer pursue sentencing enhancements in gang cases.
Those enhancements in a state murder case can mean the difference between a life term with the possibility of parole and never being released from prison.
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