Gang member gets life sentence
in 2015 Salinas murder
September 28, 2019 at 9:40 am
Bay City News Service
SALINAS
— A Norteno gang member was given a sentence of 50 years to life for the 2015
killing of a 22-year-old man from Mexico who was visiting family in Salinas.
The
sentenced man, Charles “Trigger” Gutierrez, had been convicted in May 2018 by a
jury of “murder in the first degree for the benefit of the Norteno Criminal
Street Gang, Salinas East Market, with an enhancement for personal use of a
firearm,” according to the office of Monterey
County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni.
County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni.
Gutierrez
received an additional four years as the perpetrator of a December 2017 attack
on an inmate at the Monterey County Jail.
The
sentence was made in the Aug. 7, 2015 shooting of Eliot Jair Serna of Mexico,
who was visiting his aunt and other family at the Rancho Salinas apartment in
Salinas.
Serna
and two cousins were in his aunt’s Honda on their way to get tacos when they
passed some men outside what prosecutors called “a known Norteno home within
the complex” that belonged to Gutierrez’s family.
“The
men, many of whom were active Norteno gang members, and many of whom were the
defendant’s family members, were celebrating the life of a fellow gang member
who had been murdered,” the district attorney’s office said in a news release.
Gutierrez
and other armed men approached the Honda and questioned Serna and his cousins
about their gang affiliation, according to prosecutors. Gutierrez fired at
least three shots into the car and one struck Serna’s arm and torso.
The
driver of the Honda sped to a hospital, where Serna was pronounced dead.
Members
of Serna’s family came from Mexico to hear the sentencing.
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