Five members of a "Murder Squad" in Salinas, California, who hunted members of rival gang members with guns for sport and killed innocent people in the process, were sentenced to a combined 161 years behind bars this week.
Prosecutors said the gang travelled in a convoy with a designated shooter and spotter vehicles, targeting Hispanic males, people with shaved heads, and people who wore blue, the rival color.
The security and spotter vehicles would patrol the streets searching for potential targets and once they were spotted they would call up the shooters in the shooter vehicle who would pull up and shoot at the victims until their magazines were empty, and speed away, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a news release .
The security/spotter vehicle would follow behind, ready to distract or intercept law enforcement and allow the shooters to escape, prosecutors said. The gang was responsible for killing 11 people between 2015 and 2018, prosecutors said. Another seventeen people were shot at but survived.
Most of the victims were not actually members of a rival gang, or even the intended target but were hit in the crossfire.
Several of the murders took place to commemorate one of their fallen fellow gang members “and/or lift their spirits,” prosecutors said. With each increase in the body count, a defendant’s prestige in the gang went up, authorities said.
The gang is affiliated with what’s known as “Norteños” — or Northern California street gang. They sought out rival “Sureños” — or Southern California street gang members or people they thought were affiliated with them — in Salinas, a city with a population of 163,542, more than 100 miles south of San Francisco.
Siaki “Shocky” “Gunner” Tavale, 27, received a 41-year prison term; John “Romeo” Magat, 37, was given 37 years; Anthony “Hitter” “Tony Boronda” Valdez, 27, was handed 31 years; Anelu “Angel” Tavale, 28, got 27 years; and Mark Anthony “Tony from Santa Rita” Garcia, 33, was ordered to serve 25 years. They pleaded guilty in May to the murder and racketeering conspiracy, prosecutors said.
“The ‘Murder Squad’ killed for sport, terrorizing the city of Salinas and forever altering the lives of so many innocent members of our community,” U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey said. “As described in the court filings, their conduct is reprehensible. Thanks to the strong collaboration between federal and state law enforcement over the course of many years, these men will rightfully spend the next few decades of their lives in prison.”
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