Dad moving car to avoid parking ticket was killed, CA officials say. Man sentenced
A man has been sentenced to prison more than a decade after a “young father” was shot and killed while moving his car to avoid a parking ticket, California prosecutors say.
David Guadelupe Calderon, now 31, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 27 years, in the 2012 fatal shooting of Edwin Herrera, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in an April 12 news release.
A jury found Calderon guilty of first-degree murder in March, prosecutors said.
“Hopefully, the defendant’s conviction and sentence will allow Edwin’s family to begin the healing process,” Senior Deputy District Attorney John Barrick said in the news release.
As Calderon, “a registered gang member,” drove through Oxnard with another gang member on Feb. 29, 2012, they came across Herrera, a young father, prosecutors said.
Herrera was moving his car to avoid a parking ticket when the pair drove beside him and demanded to know his gang affiliation, according to prosecutors.
Though Herrera told them he was not in a gang, prosecutors said Calderon shot him in the neck before fleeing.
Herrera’s family heard the gunshot and “rushed outside to find him slumped over in his car,” prosecutors said.
He was taken to a hospital, where he died a short time later, according to prosecutors.
Oxnard police detectives found that Calderon had bought “a unique type of shotgun ammunition” from a gun shop the same day as the killing, prosecutors said.
Calderon sold the gun used in the shooting to another gang member days after, prosecutors said.
After obtaining the gun through a search warrant on March 30, 2012, prosecutors said police found DNA evidence that linked the shotgun to Herrera’s fatal shooting.
Then, while in custody on an unrelated robbery charge months later, prosecutors said Calderon “was recorded bragging about the killing to another inmate.”
Calderon was indicted and charged with murder in August 2015, prosecutors said.
“Now, finally, after 12 long years, Edwin’s family will receive the justice they so rightfully deserve,” Barrick said after Calderon’s conviction in March.
Oxnard is about a 60-mile drive northwest from Los Angeles.
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