Fernando Arroyos and his girlfriend were looking at houses in Florence-Firestone when they came across a group of men.
Ernesto Cisneros, Jesse Contreras and Luis De La Rosa Rios were looking for someone to rob. They saw the chain around the neck of Arroyos, an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer.
Rios stopped his truck and he and Cisneros got out with guns. When they took the couple's jewelry and money, a struggle broke out. Cisneros and Rios began shooting. The 27-year-old officer, who graduated from the University of California at Berkeley before returning to join his hometown police force, died from a single gunshot wound.
Cisneros, Rios and Contreras were sentenced Friday to lengthy federal prison terms — 50 years for Cisneros, 50 for Rios and 35 for Contreras — after pleading guilty last year to racketeering. In their pleas, they admitted to killing Arroyos as part of a pattern of organized crime activity perpetrated by their gang, Florencia 13.
A fourth defendant, Hayley Grisham, pleaded guilty to committing a violent crime in aid of organized crime but has not yet been sentenced.
Angela Mendoza, Arroyos’ girlfriend, said in court that witnessing his death was “the worst day of my life.” She described Arroyos as a quiet and humble person, but talkative and funny once you got to know him, and criticized the defendants as “degenerates who took my love from us.”
Before sentencing the three, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson called Arroyos “a young man who had the potential to improve the quality of life for all of us.” The punishment for killing him, Anderson said, was meant to show that “if one chooses to endanger our community by murder, robbery and drug dealing, there is a high price to pay.”
Rios refused to address the judge. Contreras apologized to Arroyos' family and said: “It was never our intention for the officer to die.”
Cisneros, whose lawyer described him as intellectually disabled, said: “I just want to say I’m sorry to the victim’s family and I’m sorry to my family for causing them so much pain, that’s all.”
The courtroom was packed with law enforcement officers and top officials, including Los Angeles Police Department Chief Dominic Choi, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna and his predecessor, Alex Villanueva.
Founded in the 1950s, Florence 13 has become one of the largest and most notorious gangs in Los Angeles, with more than two dozen cliques, or subsets, in South Los Angeles, Huntington Park, South Gate and Maywood.
Florencia 13, which law enforcement officials say has close ties to the Mexican Mafia, has been the target of a series of federal racketeering indictments alleging the gang trafficked drugs, killed rivals and informants and extorted gambling hall and dispensary operators in the gang’s territory.
In their statements, Contreras and Ríos admitted that Arroyos was the second person robbed in the early hours of January 10, 2022.
Earlier, they confronted two musicians leaving the El Norteño bar on Compton Avenue, demanding money while pointing guns at their heads, according to their plea agreements. They admitted taking about $2,000.
Contreras and Rios then picked up Cisneros and Rios' girlfriend, Grisham. In Rios' truck, they saw Arroyos and his girlfriend on 87th Street.
“She’s got a nice chain,” Grisham recalled Rios saying. “Let’s go get her.”
