2 Gang Members Get Death Penalty for 4 Murders Committed in 2000

Two Baldwin Park gang members responsible for a murderous crime spree that culminated in a shootout on the Santa Monica Pier were sentenced to death Wednesday -- just as they said they wanted.

Oswaldo Amezcua, 30, and Joseph Conrad Flores, 34, became partners in crime in April 2000, shortly after their release from prison, prosecutors said.

They shot two teenage brothers who were riding on a bicycle, killing one of them, because they thought they were gang members, prosecutors said. They killed two more people and injured others in drive-by shootings. They set fire to a car and killed an accomplice by driving over him.

Then, on the night of July 3, 2000, police tracked the two suspects to the Santa Monica Pier and detained Flores. But Amezcua fled down the pier and barricaded himself in the arcade, using tourists as shields. The five-hour hostage crisis ended in a shootout that injured three officers and two bystanders.

“The people they killed were all unarmed. They were shot in the back. These defendants had no regard for human life,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Darren Levine said.

After a four-week trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry, a jury convicted them in March of four murders and dozens of other charges.

During the penalty phase of their trial, the pair forbade their lawyers from calling witnesses, conducting cross-examinations or pleading with jurors to spare their lives.

“Both of them wanted the death penalty, and they got it,” said Zeke Perlo, who represented Amezcua. Perlo called Pelican Bay State Prison, where the pair would have been sent had they received life sentences, “a hellhole.”

“Frankly, they would rather [go to] San Quentin. It’s a much better life,” Perlo said.

Flores’ attorney, William Ringgold, could not be reached for comment.

Levine said the violence committed by the duo and their cold-heartedness sickened even veteran prosecutors. As the mother of the brothers who were shot while riding the bicycle tearfully testified, the defendants looked at her and laughed.

“They boasted about how they tortured and killed people,” Levine said, adding that the trial to them “was almost entertainment. They wanted the notoriety of going to death row ... going down in a macho way.”