Duarte: March 2008 Archives

The shooting of 17-year-old Davien "Day Day" Graham got underway in Alhambra Tuesday with some chilling testimony from "Day Day," who recalled hearing someone holler a gang slogan before opening fire.

As a result of the shooting, Graham was paralyzed. The attack was part of a string of shootings that plagued Monrovia in December and January.

This from Fred Ortega, who attended the hearing for 19-year-old Jimmy Santana of Duarte, a suspected member of the Monrovia Nuevo Varrio 13 gang. Graham is black, Santana is Latino. Much of the violence has stemmed from an apparent race war, officials say.

He described how he was riding his bike back home from the dairy on Jan. 12 in unincorporated Monrovia when a burgundy compact rolled up slowly behind him.
“I heard someone say ‘Hey fool, (expletive) Dirt Rock,’ and then he started shooting,” said Graham, whose 17th birthday was on Monday. Dirt Rock in a derogatory term for the Du-Rock Crips, a Duarte-based black gang.

PASADENA - Seven suspected gang members were arrested in the city in the last week for the stabbing and beating of three people at a city gas station.

The people were fueling up their car at a gas station near the intersection of Lake Avenue and Washington Blvd. around 2:30 a.m. on February 10 when the suspects surrounded them and attacked, said Lt. Alex Uribe of the Pasadena Police.

The men arrested are Julio Hernandez, 23, Gustavo Menzo, 18, Edgar Sentero, 19, Michael Martin Solis, 19, Robert Julio Arnaud, 19, Jose Antonio Garcia, 24, and Wilbur Dominguez, 19.

Uribe said that he believed the suspects are members of the Pasadena Latin Kings gang.

Six of the suspects were arrested on February 28, when Pasadena police detectives and SWAT team members served search warrants at three Pasadena locations and one in Duarte, police said.

The victims survived the attack, said Uribe. The suspects were charged with assault with a deadly weapon, he said

It's been almost six weeks since the "crackdown" and it seems that the shootings are moving out of Monrovia and into Duarte.

On Sunday night a man was hospitalized following a shooting about 8:10 p.m. on Broach at Hurlock.

The wounded man was identified as a Latino in his 30s.

Suspects in the incident have also been described as Latino.

Not sure if this is related to the "spate" of shootings in January -- doesn't seem likely though.