Opinion ID: 783483
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Murder of Ana Lizarraga

Text: 25 E. Castro testified that in 1990 he attended a meeting during which Gallardo indicated his desire to kill Ana Lizarraga because she was a police informant and was interfering with his drug trafficking in Ramona Gardens. Lizarraga was a youth gang worker and had acted in Edward James Olmos's movie American Me, a fictionalized account of a California Hispanic prison gang based on the Mexican Mafia that some members of the real Mexican Mafia believed negatively portrayed their organization. 26 On May 13, 1992, Jose Joker Gonzales, a Hazard gang member, 2 and an unidentified gunman shot Lizarraga thirteen times, killing her. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Thomas Lira was nearby at the time of the shooting and heard several gunshots. He drove toward the gunshots and observed two masked men fire at Lizarraga while she stood in her driveway with her son. As Lizarraga fell to the ground, the gunmen walked closer to her and continued to shoot. When the shooting ceased, the suspects turned and ran toward Officer Lira's patrol car. One suspect pointed his gun at Officer Lira, who ducked and accelerated his vehicle to avoid being shot. Police arrested Gonzales minutes after the shooting, and a California court subsequently convicted him of first-degree murder. 27 At a January 1995 meeting, Gallardo told E.Castro that he wanted to sponsor Gonzales to become a Mexican Mafia member because Gonzales had killed Lizarraga. In addition, during an audiotaped visit at Pelican Bay State Prison on December 31, 1994, Peters told his mother, Paz Gutierrez, that [Gonzales was].... the one that killed that lady in the projects. The one that made the movies with, with Olmos. 28 The indictment charged Lizarraga's murder as a racketeering act, and the jury found the crime proven as to Gallardo.