Azusa: March 2008 Archives

Due to some technical issues, Thursday's column was much shorter in print and online than I had originally written it. (In other words I wrote long and space was short). You probably notice in reading it that it's pretty much a follow up to Sam Quinones excellent piece in yesterday's LAT.

I've heard that Quinones attended every day of trial and was able to score some interviews that I couldn't get. Most notably no one from the Azusa PD returned calls Wednesday to discuss Ralph Flores, Azusa 13 or the impact and aftermath of the spree of hate crimes that plagued Azusa between 1998 and 2004.

Complete column after the jump...

The one-man Azusa crime wave known as Ralph  "Swifty" Flores, 26, received the death penalty Tuesday, as Tribune night guy Brian Day reported:

Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee, who prosecuted the case along with Deputy District Attorney Ian Phan, said Flores deserves to be put to death, "Because he smirks when he plans to kill people, he laughs when he does it, and he brags about it afterward. That's what the evidence showed."

She added that Flores has shown no compunction for his crimes, as he demonstrated by assaulting a sheriff's deputy before the trial began and ordering a "hit" on a deputy during the jury selection process.

Flores sat silently and motionless as the verdict was read, Hanisee said. He showed no reaction at all, she added.

Defense attorney Pierpont M. Laidley said he believes negative feeling toward gang members in general caused jurors to overlook problems in the prosecutions case. "That's why I feel my guy was lynched," he said.

Los Angeles Times' EME expert Sam Quinones extensively covered the trial and put some context in his story about the significance of the sentence and the effect of Flores' crime wave on Azusa politics. Quinones also notes the connection between Azusa 13 and Jacques Padilla, an Azusa emero who's been in the news lately. Here's a snippet from the Times:

For Azusa, the case marks the end to a violent chapter in which a handful of gang members called the "trigger clique" terrorized the town with a series of shootings, killings, robberies and hate crimes targeting blacks.

Their rampage lasted from 1999 to 2004.

Besides Flores, seven other Azusa 13 gang members were convicted of the crimes and sentenced to lengthy prison terms -- five of them in one 2004 trial.

"It was a violent time for the city," said Sgt. Mike Bertelsen, Azusa's gang expert. "We were having a murder a month at the end of 2002."

What brought this violent period to an end "was a combination of citizens, the clergy, City Council and police all working together," said City Manager Francis Delach. "I think that had a big impact."

Azusa's experience shows how a few gang members following directives from the Mexican Mafia prison gang can become a public policy issue, scaring residents while taxing the budget and police resources of an otherwise peaceful town.

 

 

 

 

A jury in the death penalty trial of Ralph Flores, 26, an Azusa 13 gang member recommended Tuesday he be put to death, officials said.

A defense attorney for Flores tried to sway jurors to vote against the Death Penalty by using the lingering doubt argument, which is allowed in California criminal trials. 

The attorney was apparently unsuccessful.

A Los Angeles jury found that Ralph Flores killed four people between 1999 and 2004. Prosecutors said he was a member of one of Southern California's most violent gangs.

Judge Kathleen Kennedy ( you may remember her from the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing) heard the case and will continue to preside over future hearings.

The tattoo where Flores' mustache should be reads "AZUSA."

As for the convictions, one killing carried a hate crime enhancement, another invoved the torture death of a suspected female informant.

Here's the full story. The penalty phase in Flores' trial begins Monday. he could be sentenced to death.