Gang member pleads no contest in Burbank mall shooting
A 25-year-old gang member pleaded no contest to charges that he shot a man during an attack outside the Burbank Town Center early one morning last April, officials said.
Albert Vasquez was convicted of one count each of assault with a firearm, attempting to make criminal threats and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
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He is slated to be sentenced next month to 12 years in state prison, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
At around 1:30 a.m. on April 4, two 22-year-old men were leaving the movie theater with their girlfriends when they were allegedly confronted by a handful of men, including Vasquez.
“Where are you from?” someone in the group asked, according to testimony during a preliminary hearing last December.
It’s a question asked to identify someone’s gang ties and could indicate impending violence, a gang expert testified.
One man leaving the theater was thrown to the ground, kicked and beaten, while Vasquez — a known Temple Street gang member — confronted the other man, identified by authorities as a rival gang member named Jose Leon.
He kept his hand in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, which led witnesses to believe he was carrying a gun.
Shortly after, one witness heard someone shout “Temple Street,” followed by a pop, and Leon, a member of the street gang Osiri Boys, was on the ground. Leon had reportedly pulled out a knife to defend himself, but was shot in an upper thigh before he could use it.
Both gangs reportedly operate out of the Rampart area of Los Angeles.
Vasquez was spotted fleeing the area, and when officers tried to stop him, he led them on a “dangerous” foot chase across the Golden State (5) Freeway, prosecutor Elaine Ramsey said at the time.
Officers caught up with him as he was crawling through a small hole in a chain-link fence near the freeway.
There, he gave up, complying with officers’ orders to lie face down.
After he was detained, officers took into evidence his sweatshirt, which had a bullet hole in the front pocket. A loaded handgun was recovered in a nearby drain.
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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek