Fugitive Is Arrested in Shooting Deaths of 3 at Eastside Party

A fugitive suspected of killing three people at a New Year’s party in Lincoln Heights was arrested as he tried to reenter the country from Mexico, authorities said.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors arrested Javier Olivares Jr., 19, on Thursday night at the San Ysidro border crossing, said Capt. Paul Pesqueira of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Authorities said that early Jan. 1, a female accomplice drove Olivares to a house in the 100 block of West Avenue 28, where he approached a crowd and allegedly fired several shots from an assault rifle. Felipe Meza and Juan Manuel Torres, both 20, and Leonel Mendival, 29, were killed and a woman was injured.

Olivares’ alleged accomplice, Marcia Estrada, 27, was arrested on unrelated charges in Kern County several days later. She was charged in connection with the Jan. 1 shooting later that month, said Lt. Joe Mariana.

Witnesses identified Olivares as a member of a local gang, and said he was angry because a fellow gang member had “disrespected” one of his female friends, Pesqueira said.

“There was some type of argument several hours before [the shooting] that didn’t involve him,” Pesqueira said. “The argument involved two females. Another person got involved, and based on that prior argument, he decides that he was going to do some payback because he believed this friend of his was disrespected or perhaps battered.”

Officials said they think Olivares traveled to the Midwest. They don’t know when he left the country.

Olivares, who is from the Mexican state of Jalisco, was a passenger in a car with two others when a border inspector detained him because he presented a photocopied birth certificate that belonged to someone else, authorities said.

An electronic check of his fingerprints showed he was wanted by the LAPD.

“This represents outstanding work by our officers,” said Adele J. Fasano, director of the immigration service’s San Diego office. “Technology plays an important role, but cases like this one are also a testament to our officers’ training and expertise.”

Detectives from the LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division are returning Olivares to Los Angeles, and he will be arraigned early next week, Mariana said.