Jury Hears of Gang Murder of Toddler, Neighbor in 1989 : Trial: Two men may face the death penalty for a drive-by shooting in which a 2-year-old was killed.

A gang shooting that killed a 2-year-old boy in 1989 started with a simple traffic mishap, prosecutors told a Superior Court jury this week.

There were no injuries or damage from the near-collision, but two people died and three others suffered bullet wounds in the day of gang warfare that followed. On Tuesday, prosecutors asked jurors to find the accused killers guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances. A conviction could lead Ricky Johnson, 21, and David Florence, 22, to the gas chamber.

“This shooting was meant to send a message (to rival gang members),” Deputy Dist. Atty. Michele Gilmer said in closing arguments to the jury. “Now you send a message. Tell Ricky Johnson he can’t get away with it. Tell David Florence he’s a big man, and he can take responsibility for his actions.”

Both men have pleaded not guilty to the shootings and provided alibis for the time of the shooting at 1301 S. Central Ave.

The Jan. 28, 1989, shooting, which killed Phillip Fisher, 2, and Deandrea Richards, 19, as they played in the front yard of the home where Fisher lived, sparked a public outcry and demands that city officials stop the violence. But in the three years that it has taken the case to get to trial, the case has been all but forgotten, said the slain boy’s father.

“The neighborhood’s gotten worse, if anything. It’s worse all over, and it seems like nobody cares anymore,” Greg Fisher, 34, said in an interview. “There’s been so many other children killed like this, nobody remembers Phillip.”

The incident began on the afternoon of Jan. 28 when a woman backing out of a driveway onto Reeves Street nearly hit a carload of gang members. Several of the woman’s friends, members of a rival gang, got into an argument with the occupants of the other car. Witnesses said later that Florence’s Buick Regal was at the scene.

During the argument, Richards was slapped in the face, witnesses said. Vowing to get even, he went home, retrieved a gun and went looking for the other gang. Shortly after 7 p.m., Richards found the other gang members driving down Alondra Boulevard and shot several times into the blue Buick, according to testimony.

The Buick careened across several lanes of traffic and crashed into a Mobil gas station where witnesses saw Florence and Johnson, who are cousins, get out of the car, Gilmer said.

“Now it was pay-back time,” Gilmer said. “They got shot at, and they were going to go . . . take care of business.”

Fisher and Richards, who lived next door, were shot when two men in a blue Buick Regal slowed in front of the Fishers’ home just after 9 p.m. and opened fire, according to testimony. Three other people were wounded in the drive-by shooting.

The gun was never recovered, but witnesses and investigators testified that the 25 to 30 bullets sprayed over the Fisher’s front lawn most likely came from an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle.

Richards attempted to run to safety as the shooting started, holding the toddler in his arms, Gilmer said, but gunfire cut them down.

No witness to the shooting was able to identify Florence as the car’s driver. One witness, Richards’ uncle, pointed out Johnson as the shooter after seeing him in a police lineup.

Defense attorneys have questioned the identification, however, saying that it was too dark and that witnesses only had about two seconds of time to see the attackers.

Johnson claims he was attending a birthday party during the shooting, and Florence, who testified on his own behalf, said he spent the evening with his sister and aunt.

Both men produced witnesses who attested to their whereabouts during the shooting, but prosecutors said the witnesses either weren’t credible or had changed their stories over the three years it took the case to go to trial.

Jury deliberations began Wednesday morning.