Police arrest three in killing of man outside Bossa Nova restaurant in Hollywood

Detectives have arrested three people on suspicion of gunning down a man outside a Hollywood restaurant last month in a robbery gone awry, Los Angeles police said Friday.

Jose Ruiz Gutierrez, 23, was waiting in a car outside Bossa Nova restaurant on Sunset Boulevard around 2 a.m. on Nov. 23 when a woman he was with stepped out and was accosted by a group of people who tried to rob her, police said. Ruiz Gutierrez, who was carrying a gun, got out of the car to intervene and the assailants shot him to death and fled.

Detectives made the arrests in the case earlier this week, the LAPD said. L.A. County prosecutors have charged Jayon Sanders, 21, Abraham Castillo, 20, and Tyree Singleton, 20, with the murder of Ruiz Gutierrez, police said. The district attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for the charging documents filed against the three men.

Sanders, Castillo, Singleton and a fourth man, Joshua Saulsberry, 21, are also charged with robbery, the LAPD said.

As part of the investigation that led to the arrest of the four men, authorities searched locations in Los Angeles and Fontana, seizing $30,000 in cash, a Rolex, a gun, handbags and two vehicles suspected of being used in the slaying and robberies, the LAPD said.

Detectives have been investigating a spate of “follow-home” robberies, so called for the perpetrators’ method of spotting their victims at expensive restaurants or nightclubs and following them to their homes, where they rob them at gunpoint of watches, jewelry, cash and other valuables. The LAPD is investigating 150 follow-home robberies and similar crimes.

A review of booking records shows that Sanders had been arrested and released from jail five times this year before being taken into custody this week. He was arrested most recently by LAPD officers in the Pacific Division and released on bond Nov. 11, less than two weeks before Ruiz Gutierrez was killed outside Bossa Nova.

Sanders has been charged this year in seven cases filed at three courthouses across the county, records show. The charges included possession of a gun as a felon, carrying a concealed weapon, fleeing from police, driving with a suspended license, robbery, grand theft and assault of a police officer.

Sanders pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. In the case filed this week, he is charged with robbery, attempted robbery and murder. He has yet to enter a plea, and his bail is set at $2.5 million.

His co-defendant, Saulsberry, was arrested Nov. 4 by sheriff’s deputies in Palmdale and released six days later. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of possessing a firearm and ammunition as a felon and carrying a loaded gun in public, records show.

Castillo was arrested Dec. 8 by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon and was released the next day, booking records show. He hasn’t been charged in that incident.

Singleton had not been previously arrested this year in Los Angeles County, according to booking records.