Accused Armenian Power members expected in court

A long-awaited court case looks like it could be moving forward today involving three accused members of the Armenian Power street gang who are charged in a shooting that wounded a rival Latino tagging crew member in Glendale in 2006 after an alley fight between the two groups.

It looks like both the victim's gang and the suspects' gang were flexing their muscles over turf.

The boys who were 15 and 14-years-old at the time of the April 17, 2006 shooting at Adams Street and Elm Elk Avenue are being tried as adults and police are still seeking an additional suspect, whose fingerprint was allegedly found on the revolver that was believed used in the shooting.

According to transcripts of the March 2007 preliminary hearing, Boris Voskanyan, Karapet Tumanyan, and Sevak Mehrabian were allegedly in a car and pulled up alongside Augustin "Icer" Rodriguez and his friends on Adams Street and Elk Avenue. Someone inside the car allegedly fired between three and four shots, wounding Rodriguez, who testified in court as belonging to a tagging crew called Krazy Demons.

The shooting capped a fight apparently that broke out earlier between Armenians and Latinos, according to court testimony. One shot was fired in the air in an alley during the scuffle, sending people scattering. Later the group of Armenians in the car pulled up alongside of a group of Latinos, shouted "Westside A.P." - for Armenian Power - then fired.

Rodriguez suffered a bullet wound to his left thigh and has since recovered.

Testifying at the preliminary hearing, Rodriguez said he believed there were two males in the front seats and three in the back. He said he did not get a good look at the triggerman who he believed was sitting in the back seat and wearing a black hood over his head.

“I didn't get a good look at him, because when I looked over, I saw the gun and he had his hood on and I went to the floor,” he testified.

Witness Victor Escalante couldn't identify the shooter either.

“I just saw a gun come out, and it just shot,” he testified. “I just saw my friend, Augustin, just limp across the street ... We pulled up his pants and it was all bleeding.”

Police recovered a silver Taurus .38 caliber revolver with wooden grips believed used in the shooting, the court papers said. It was found a day after the shooting inside a box in the carport area at the Glendale apartment complex where Tumanyan lived.

During an interview with police, Mehrabian told detectives he was in the car, in the front passenger seat, at the time of the shooting and fingered Karapet “Violent” Tumanyan as the driver. He identified Boris “Shades” Voskanian and Hayk Antonian, the fugitive, as sitting in the backseat.

He said that if any shooting happened inside that car, it “came from the back of the car.” Antonian was arrested the next day and police said he gave them a key bit of information, telling them that when he and his associates typically hide guns, they keep them in a covered toy wagon in the carport area of Tumanyan's home, Glendale Police Detective Matt Irvine testified.

Police did not find the gun there, but did later found it in one of two boxes in the carport area, Irvine testified.

Antonian, who was detained for questioning, was released for a lack of evidence, a mistake, Irvine acknowledged in court.

After police had the gun analyzed, they found only one print – belonging to Antonian and police issued a warrant for his arrest.

“At the time, a day after the shooting, our belief was that Hayk was neither the driver or the person who brandished the gun in the initial confrontation, nor the person who actually shot Rodriguez,” Irvine testified. “And therefore, we felt at the time that he was more useful to us as a witness than as a suspect. In retrospect, that thinking was incorrect.”

Tumanyan, Mehrabian and Voskanian face attempted murder and other charges. Stay tuned for updates about the status of the case.