SIMI VALLEY : Youth Gets 7 Years in Gang Shooting

A 17-year-old Simi Valley gang member Friday received a seven-year sentence for his role in a drive-by shooting in July in which no one was injured.

Judge Kenneth R. Yegan sentenced Francisco Real to seven years in the California Youth Authority and ordered him to pay $300 in restitution to each of two men whose cars were damaged by bullets.

Francisco pleaded guilty on Sept. 7 to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon in the July 8 incident.

Francisco, who has claimed to be a member of the Lennox 13 gang from the Los Angeles area, drove with three minors to a house in the 2300 block of Fig Street in Simi Valley about 10:30 p.m., just as a keg party there was ending, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Rhonda Wilson.

The four Latino occupants of the car drove up to the driveway full of mostly white party-goers and tried to get in, Wilson said. One drunken party-goer allegedly looked at Francisco’s car and said, “Where are my white brothers to help me take care of these guys?”

The youth driving the car, whom Wilson declined to identify because he was 16, pulled a baseball bat out of the trunk and began arguing with the party-goers, Wilson said. At the request of one of the party’s hosts, the youth put away the bat and got back into the car, and word spread through the crowd that a drive-by shooting might happen.

As the car turned around at the end of the block and cruised past the party with its lights off, Francisco fired five or six shots with a .38-caliber handgun at the four party-goers still in the driveway, Wilson said.

Four of the shots hit two cars, but no people, and the car carrying Francisco and the others sped away, Wilson said.

Francisco was charged as an adult and set for trial in Superior Court when he pleaded guilty last month, Wilson said.