A third suspect has been arrested and charged with capital murder in the shooting of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Juan Abel Escalante outside his parents' Cypress Park home, and investigators are searching for a fourth man wanted for the slaying.
Jose Renteria, 18, was arrested April 16 at the East Lake Juvenile Detention Center, where he was being held as a juvenile. He pleaded not guilty Monday in the killing of the deputy, who was shot in the back of the head as he reached into his car to adjust a child's car seat last summer.
Prosecutors have already charged two alleged gang members, Javier Velasquez, 24, the man authorities say was the gunman, and Guillermo Hernandez, 20. They are charged with one count each of murder with the special circumstance that the Aug. 2 killing was carried out to further a criminal street gang, making it a potential death-penalty case.
Investigators are now searching for Armando Albarran, 36, who was charged Tuesday with Escalante's murder and for whom an arrest warrant was issued, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office. The three men in custody are due back in court April 27. Prosecutors will decide later whether to pursue the death penalty against the defendants.
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and Sheriff Lee Baca plan a news conference this afternoon to publicize the third arrest and seek the public's help in the search for Albarran. Escalante, 27, was preparing to go to work about 5:40 a.m. when he was fatally shot. Celeste Escalante heard the gunfire, looked out her window and saw her husband lying on the ground. Escalante was a 2 1/2-year veteran of the Sheriff's Department and had served in the U.S. Army Reserve.
The deputy worked at the Men's Central Jail guarding some of the county's most dangerous inmates. He and his family had been living with his parents while waiting to move into a new Pomona home. Since the August shooting, a joint task force of Los Angeles Police Department robbery-homicide detectives, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's homicide bureau and members of the Los Angeles high-intensity drug-trafficking-areas task force have searched for Escalante's killers.
The suspects are alleged members or associates of the notorious Avenues gang, which has long feuded with the Cypress Park gang, whose territory includes the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood where Escalante lived. The Avenues is among the most powerful gangs in the city and retains strong ties to the Mexican mafia, known as the Eme, which is a dominant force in California prisons.
"When one of us is brutally killed, all of us grieve," Baca said after the first arrests, standing with Celeste Escalante and her family. "Hopefully, this will lift some of the pain that's on your shoulders." The Cypress Park neighborhood where Escalante grew up had experienced a lull in gang violence in recent years until rival groups began feuding last year.
The violence led to a raid mostly targeting the Avenues gang in late June by police and federal agents, who stormed an area around Drew Street, about a mile north of where Escalante was killed. In February, a shooting outside an elementary school a few blocks from the Escalante home sparked a fierce gun battle between gang members and police in neighboring Glassell Park.
The Avenues gang took root in the 1950s and derives its name from the avenues that cross Figueroa Street. The police late last year announced a $95,000 reward in the Escalante killing. Anyone with information about the slaying is asked to call Dets. Thomas Mathew or Steven Eguchi at (213) 485-2531. After hours or on weekends, calls may be directed to a 24-hour, toll-free line at (877) LAPD-24-7 or by text messaging CRIMES (274637) and beginning the message with the letters LAPD. Tipsters may also submit information on the LAPD website. All tips will remain anonymous.
