Times coverage: Gang members stand trial for racially motivated killings in Harbor Gateway

Aug. 12, 2010, 12:57 p.m.

Photo: Cheryl Greene, 14, was killed Dec. 15 as she walked along Harvard Boulevard. Credit: Genaro Molina Two 204th Street gang members are standing trial for the alleged racially motivated shooting death of a teenage girl and the stabbing of a potential witness.

Prosecutors in court Wednesday said Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old black girl, was hanging out with friends on Dec. 15, 2000 in a driveway in the 20000 block of South Harvard Boulevard in Harbor Gateway when Jonathan Fajardo, 22, walked up and started shooting at the crowd. Cheryl was killed. Three other people were shot but survived their injuries.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gretchen Ford told jurors that the ambush was motivated by a confrontation Fajardo had with a black man at a nearby market. When Fajardo and fellow gang members approached the man in his car, he revealed a gun. The gang members, who were unarmed, fled the area.

Angry over the encounter, Fajardo later shot at Green and her friends because they were black, Ford said.

Photo: Jonathan Fajardo is accused of killing Cheryl Green, 14, on Dec. 15, 2006. Credit: LASD Perhaps what is most confounding about the motivation behind the shooting is the fact that Fajardo is half Mexican and half black. His father is Creole, whose parents were from Belize.

During the homicide investigation, police believed the 204th Street gang was connected with Green's death due to prior shootings gang members committed targeting blacks. Police served a search warrant for the apartment of Christopher Ash, a 204th Street member. Others in the gang believed he might have snitched to the police about Green's death, officials said, and lured him into a garage where he was fatally stabbed.

Fajardo and Daniel Aguilar, a 23-year-old Latino, have been charged with Ash's death.

Times reporter Victoria Kim has more on the story: Racial hatred blamed in girl's slaying in Harbor Gateway area

Upper photo: Cheryl Green. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Lower photo: Jonathan Fajardo. Credit: Los Angeles Police Department

33 reader comments

TellinItHowItIs: Your comments are borderline nauseating. You don't think that Cheryl Green was that innocent?! What are you alleging that she did to deserve Jonathan Fajardo the Monster to walk up to her and her friends and open fire? Are you insinuating that she was smoking a little pot and therefore perhaps she had it coming? What the hell is the matter with you? Do you imagine we aren't aware of the black gang banging idiots who do the same thing to innocent latinos? They're all scumbags. But this ass clown Fajardo and the rest of those 204th street vermin are some of the worst examples of human garbage out there. How on earth can you even begin to defend this monster or impune a 14year old girl WHO WAS BRUTALLY MURDERED!

— Citizenjohn Sept. 20, 2010 at 1:36 p.m.

everyone keeps saying how Johnathan Fajardo is a coward and that he only went to target an inocent 14yr. old girl.
first of all, the girl wasnt targeted, secondly...what was she doing hanging out late night with other "black" members while they we're gettin high?
i dont mean this in a bad way, but personally, i dont think that Cheryl Green was that inocent and that her mom knew what she was doing all along.
everyone is trying to just target the latinos as being racial towards black, but you sure dont hear on this event on how many timeless times the blacks crossed over to the latinos side and start to shoot at innocent latinos. not to mention of an occation when they killed an innocent man.
i lived in that area for 20yrs or so...and i can remember the time when my mother, two young kids, and ex brother in law we're driving home when a group of black "men" pulled up right next to the car and began to shoot towards them.
the blacks in that area are not innocent at all.
blacks constantly came and went back and forth and up and down the streets harassing any and every latino they came across regarless of their age and sex.
and when the oppertunity came for the people in the community to speak out...they totally disregarded to what the latinos had to say.
i know lations arent innocent in all this, but since people want to throw things out there...then tell the whole truth.

— TellinItHowItIs Sept. 19, 2010 at 3:03 p.m.

I hear a lot of people talking about the RICO laws and getting the gangs off the street using RICO. RICO:
It is unlawful for anyone employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt, you hear the word racketeering and collection of debt used a lot. This is why RICO wont get rid of gangs, The feds having been trying for years to get rid of the Hells Angels, and every time they try to get them under RICO it never sticks. It is very tricky to get a "gang" under RICO statutes. Dont get me wrong, I want these low life pieces of human garbage off the street as well, but the powers that be wont get them under RICO

— JJ Aug. 16, 2010 at 2:30 p.m.

The Homicide Report

Times coverage: Gang members stand trial for racially motivated killings in Harbor Gateway

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33 reader comments