16-year-old sentenced to life in prison

A 16-year-old was sentenced March 10, 2005, to state prison for the April 2004 shooting death of a California Highway Patrol officer, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Valentino Mitchell Arenas was sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killing of Thomas Steiner.

On Dec. 6, 2004, as jury selection continued, Arenas pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He also admitted the special circumstance of killing a police officer, lying in wait and committing a murder during a drive-by shooting.

He had confessed to randomly killing Steiner in order to impress a street gang he wanted to join.

Steiner, a 35-year-old white man, was shot and killed April 21, 2004, in the 400 block of Civic Center Drive in Pomona. He was shot multiple times in front of a Pomona courthouse, shortly after testifying in a series of minor traffic cases, authorities said.

The five-year CHP veteran was shot around 2:50 p.m. as he walked to his patrol car. He was 200 feet from the courthouse steps and was preparing to cross 7th Street to a parking lot when a red car rolled to a stop nearby, witnesses said.

A man stepped out from behind the wheel, raised a handgun and fired. The gunman stepped back into the car and sped away, witnesses told police. Steiner was hit three times, including a fatal shot to the head. He was transported to Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 6:59 p.m.

Arenas, was arrested April 22 in south Pomona not far from where he abandoned the vehicle he used in the shooting.

-- Maloy Moore