Anti-Gang Violence Activist Arrested in Shooting Death

To all appearances, Ivan Giovanni Aleman had turned his life around. He had gone from gang member to community activist and peacekeeper, handing out clothes to the poor and speaking to youths about the evils of gang life.

But on Thursday, Aleman, 27, a member of the Peace Treaty Council, which works to prevent violence among gangs in the San Fernando Valley, was arrested on suspicion of murder in the 1993 shooting death of Pedro Arias, 17, of Sun Valley.

Arias was killed on Feb. 1, 1993, when a truckload of gang members shot him several times as he rode his bicycle in the 7900 block of DeGarmo Avenue in Sun Valley, police said.

Aleman was arrested Wednesday afternoon by Los Angeles police officers after witnesses and new evidence surfaced in the 2-year-old killing that implicated him. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.

“We have two witnesses who say that he was the driver of the truck,” said Detective Gil Uribe of the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division. “But he denies he was ever involved.”

Aleman, who is being held at the Los Angeles Men’s Jail in lieu of $1 million bail, joined the seven-member peace treaty council in 1993 as a representative of a North Hollywood gang. He left the gang about six months later and became a full-fledged council member, according to Valley treaty organizer Steven Martinez.

“I believe he didn’t do it,” said Martinez, who is a close friend of Aleman. “The police are just going by some old tips that a homeboy gave them.”

Friends of Aleman say he left the gang life for Christianity and is now an active member of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys.

Martinez said Aleman was a hardened gang member when he joined the Peace Treaty Council, a volunteer group founded in October of 1993 by William (Blinky) Rodriguez and seven others to halt bloodshed among Latino gangs. Police have credited the council with a sharp drop in Valley gang homicides.

But after six months of meeting every weekend to hammer out resolutions to problems and nurture the tenuous peace treaty, Aleman left his gang, Martinez said.

“Last year, he was on Blythe Street with us handing out clothes to the poor because he just wanted to become more involved,” said Martinez. “Right now, he is disliked by his own homeboys because he stands up for what is right.”

But police defended the arrest as simple police work.

“Any case--whether it is 2, 5 or 10 years old--that is unsolved, is always ongoing,” said Detective Mark Aragon, who also worked on the case. “We don’t just arrest a person for no reason, and at this time we have enough to file a case against him.”

Aragon’s partner, Uribe, sums it up: “Today he may be a nice kid, but two years ago he was a different kid.”

Investigators said that for years, rumors on the street pointed to a single shooter in the incident, but the killer’s face could not be identified until now. Just before the shooting, police believe the same group of gang members drove up to another youth on a bike and threatened him, according to Uribe.

Martinez said Aleman is being punished for his past. “We knew the police would try to get some of us in the truce,” said Martinez. “And obviously, Ivan is the first one.”