Masters Is Found Guilty of 2 Weapons Violations : Courts: Man who shot two taggers in Sun Valley, killing one and wounding another, vows to appeal verdicts on misdemeanor charges.

William A. Masters II, the man who shot and killed one graffiti tagger in Sun Valley last winter and wounded another, was found guilty Monday of two misdemeanor weapons violations.

“I’m hopeful that it sends a message that we are not in the Wild West days, where everyone is allowed to carry a weapon to administer justice,” said Deputy City Atty. George Schell, who prosecuted the case.

But Masters, the 35-year-old part-time actor and would-be screenwriter, vowed to appeal the conviction, arguing that he has the right to carry a gun to protect himself.

Masters’ attorney, C. D. (Chuck) Michel, said he will argue that California’s concealed-weapons laws are unconstitutional. That argument was rejected by Van Nuys Municipal Judge Lloyd Nash. Nash also refused to allow Masters to claim that he needed to hide his gun because he feared if police found him with a loaded weapon, he might be mistakenly attacked, and that he also feared other gang members might appear and assault him.

“People are dying because they can’t defend themselves,” Michel said after the trial. “The choice is either to get killed or break the law to save your own life.”

Sentencing was set for Nov. 8. Masters faces a maximum penalty of up six months in jail for carrying a concealed weapon and one year for carrying a loaded weapon, but Nash said earlier in the trial that he would not consider a sentence longer than a year.

The events that left Cesar Rene Arce dead and David Hillo wounded in the early hours of Jan. 30 drew national attention. Many in the Mexican American community, upon hearing that Masters referred to Arce and Hillo as “skinhead Mexicans” in media interviews, have come to view him as a vigilante who went out that night looking for trouble.

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But gun advocates have rallied around Masters, saying that he would have been killed had he not drawn his weapon.

“I had to pull a gun once,” a man who was watching the trial confided to Masters after the proceedings were over Monday. “Otherwise they would have killed me.”

According to police, Masters was out for a walk shortly after midnight, pulled a gun out of a fanny pack and shot Arce through the back of the chest, killing him, in an altercation that apparently arose after Masters came upon him and Hillo tagging a freeway overpass. Hillo was wounded in the buttocks.

Masters has said that the pair threatened him with a screwdriver and demanded his wallet after he threatened to report them for tagging. He was never charged with murder or manslaughter. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office ruled that Masters was justified under California law in shooting the two men in self-defense.

On Monday, the Mexican American Bar Assn. demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct a separate investigation into the shootings.

Enrique Arevalo, president of the organization, welcomed the guilty verdicts on the weapons charges. But, he said, that doesn’t make up for the fact that Masters was not charged in Arce’s death.

“I am not very happy with the fact that the district attorney had the opportunity to charge him with murder one or second-degree murder or even manslaughter and he didn’t do it,” Arevalo said. “Because any way you look at it, he killed a person.”

Even if, as Masters claims, the killing was in self-defense, Arevalo said, Masters should have to answer for Arce’s death in court.

Arevalo said that had Masters been a Latino who had shot two white taggers, “he would be facing the death penalty right now.”

For his part, Masters has suggested that Hillo, the surviving tagger, should have been charged with attempted robbery. Hillo, who was charged with vandalism for spray-painting graffiti the night he encountered Masters, is in prison on a variety of unrelated charges, ranging from vandalism to grand theft.

Masters said Monday that Hillo was given preferential treatment because he was Latino.

“He was a Hispanic robbing a white man,” Masters said. Had a Latino been the victim, he said, Hillo would have been charged with robbery.

During the trial, which lasted only two days, police described Masters as “crying” and “hysterical” on the night of the incident.

Masters was friendly and calm during most of the trial, even bringing a copy of a script he had written to show to a reporter.

But at one point, he interrupted proceedings to speak directly to Nash, characterizing the judge as having made a “disgusting” suggestion. Nash ordered Masters to stop talking or spend the rest of the trial in a lockup.

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Michel’s defense was threefold: Although Nash had ordered him to limit testimony suggesting that Masters carried the gun for self-defense, the attorney tried repeatedly to explain that Masters felt threatened in the dark streets where he went walking that night. He also argued that Masters might not have had his weapon concealed when he first left his house, a contention that Nash said was “beyond credulity.”

Michel also argued that Masters, who was found by police with his weapon loaded and concealed in a black leather fanny pack, was forced by circumstance to hide the weapon. With Arce dead and Hillo wounded, Michel said, Masters was in danger because their friends might return to get revenge.

“It is ridiculous to me that someone who has just shot two people is in danger,” said Nash, who sustained a prosecution objection. “He was the one with the gun.”

* INQUIRY SOUGHT: Latino lawyers ask for U.S. probe of law enforcement. B10