Masters Will Clean Trash, Not Graffiti : Crime: Judge changes punishment for gun violations due to concerns for the safety of the man who killed a tagger.

William A. Masters II, who was convicted on misdemeanor gun charges after fatally shooting a graffiti vandal in Sun Valley in January, will not be required to remove graffiti as part of his sentence, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Masters instead will serve on a trash pickup crew supervised by the California Department of Transportation, said Deputy City Atty. George A. Schell.

Schell, who prosecuted the case against Masters, said the sentence was altered as a precaution. Masters, who has received threats since the shooting, would be more likely to encounter vandals while removing graffiti than on a 30-day trash pickup crew, Schell said.

“There might be at least some potential for danger,” he said. “We just thought it might be more sensible.”

The rest of Masters’ sentence, handed down in November, remains the same, including three years probation, giving up his gun collection, attending a 10-hour program viewing victims of violent crime in an emergency room and witnessing an autopsy.

Municipal Judge Lloyd Nash made the change this month without objection from the prosecution.

Masters was convicted in October on two misdemeanor counts: carrying a concealed firearm in public and carrying a loaded firearm in public.

He killed Cesar Rene Arce, 18, and wounded David Hillo, then 20, in a confrontation just after midnight Jan. 31 under a Hollywood Freeway overpass.

The case, in which Masters said he acted in self-defense after he was threatened with a screwdriver, attracted national attention. Masters’ supporters praised him for standing up to so-called thugs, while his critics called him a racist vigilante who shot two Latino youths without justification.