18-Year-Old Sentenced to Prison in Gang Slaying

A North Hollywood teen-ager was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years to life in prison for the execution-style slaying of a rival gang member.

Jorge Galvez, 18, was one of three men convicted last year in San Fernando Superior Court of second-degree murder in the November, 1987, shooting death of 20-year-old Ruben Macias. David Arqueta, 20, was earlier sentenced to 17 years to life in prison, and Jeffrey Prieto, 22, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the killing, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Nison.

Authorities said the three men were members of a San Fernando Valley street gang and that the victim belonged to an East Los Angeles gang.

Macias was shot four times in the head and once in the hip and abdomen with a .22-caliber rifle as he walked along Laurel Canyon Boulevard near Sheldon Street in North Hollywood. “The motive was never clear,” Nison said of the shooting.

Witnesses testified that they saw Arqueta and Prieto get out of a car, driven by Galvez, at that intersection the night Macias was killed. Although they testified that they saw Arqueta carrying a rifle, witnesses said that they did not actually see the shooting.

Three days later, Arqueta and Prieto were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after witnesses saw Arqueta fire six rounds from a .22-caliber rifle into the window of a North Hollywood doughnut shop. Ballistics tests indicated that the rifle was the same one used to kill Macias. Galvez was arrested a short time later.