Cazares

A jury found defendants Fernando Ca-zares, Gilbert Saldana, Alejandro Martinez, and Porfirio Avila guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. § 241 by conspiring to intimidate African-American citizens in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Ange-les and to deprive them of their constitutional right to “purchase, lease and hold real and personal property, and the right to occupy a dwelling, free from intimidation based on race.” The jury found defendants Cazares, Saldana, and Martinez guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 245 (b)(2)(B), and 2(a) by shooting Kenneth Kurry Wilson, an African-American man, because of his race and color and because he was enjoying facilities provided and administered by a subdivision of the State, namely the public streets of Los Angeles. The jury also found defendants Cazares, Saldana, and Martinez guilty of violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 924 (c)(l)(A)(iii), (j)(l) and 2(a) by using firearms to kill Kenneth Kurry Wilson while carrying out the charged conspiracy.

The defendants are members of the Avenues 43, a Latino street gang in the Highland Park area, an area inhabited predominantly by Latinos. One of the tenets of the Avenues 48 was to harass and use violence…