I often don't quite understand these gang shooting cases. The facts are often identical:
Step One: A gang member sees someone sitting somewhere.
Step Two: The gang member walks up to the person and says "Where you from?" (That's a gang challenge, essentially asking the person if they're with a rival gang.)
Step Three: The person, who's not a gang member, accurately responds: "I'm not from nowhere." (Read: I'm a bystander; I'm not in a gang.)
Step Four: The gang member promptly shoots and kills the bystander.
That's what happens here, for example. It's a lazy June afternoon. Not even nighttime. Some high school kids were sitting on some bleachers in a park in Venice right before a girl's softball game. The high school kids weren't gang members; they were just hanging out, talking.
And then steps one, two, three and four.
Weird. I don't get it. I don't understand how it assists your standing in the gang to kill someone who's not in a rival gang -- essentially at random. You'd think that'd be a sign that the guy's an idiot, not someone you totally want to hang out it (or depend upon).
P.S. - Is one of the deceased victim's names really "Allan" Mateo? That's how the opinion reads, as well as a press release from the DA's office at the time. But almost all the other press reports have his name as "Alan" Mateo. I wonder who's right. Regardless: A totally senseless crime (and death).
