Wounded Tagger Won’t Face Felony Charges, D.A. Says

No felony charges will be brought against a 20-year-old tagger shot by a Sun Valley man last month, prosecutors announced Thursday--eliminating the issue of whether the wounded man should be charged with the murder of his slain friend.

Prosecutors said they could not prove that David Hillo of North Hollywood tried to rob William A. Masters II, 35, or was responsible for causing Masters to shoot and kill Hillo’s friend, Cesar Rene Arce, 18, of Arleta.

Masters said he happened upon the two taggers on a late night stroll in Arleta on Jan. 31 and jotted down their car license plate number. Masters said the two demanded the paper back, and after he returned it, they menaced and tried to rob him, so he shot them in self-defense.

Hillo has denied the robbery attempt. He admitted he was carrying a screwdriver, which he said he did not brandish as a weapon.

The district attorney’s office ruled Feb. 2 that Masters could not be prosecuted for Arce’s death, saying that Masters felt sufficiently threatened to use his gun under the California legal provisions governing killing in self-defense. Any trial would boil down to Masters’ word against Hillo’s, prosecutors said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Cohen used similar reasoning Thursday in explaining why he wo5ld not charge Hillo with attempted armed robbery.

“Masters is . . . the only witness who could testify against Hillo,” wrote Cohen in the statement outlining why charges would not be filed. “There is insufficient evidence, given our burden of proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ to file this charge.”

The decision means that Hillo is no longer in danger of being charged with his friend’s murder. Under California law, prosecutors can charge someone with murder for any death caused by the commission of a crime, even the death of an accomplice.

If Hillo had been charged with armed robbery, the district attorney’s office might have felt obligated to charge him with murder as well, a common action in such cases.

“I wouldn’t want to be blamed for my own friend’s death,” Hillo said Thursday after learning of the district attorney’s decision. “I wouldn’t be able to live with that. I didn’t think I was going to be prosecuted anyway.”

Masters and Hillo still face possible misdemeanor charges. The city attorney’s office is considering whether to charge Masters with carrying a concealed firearm without a permit. A spokeswoman for the D.A.’s office said they have referred Hillo’s case to the city attorney for possible charges of vandalism and intimidation.