On a Monday night in February, police say, Roberto Martinez took his 14-year-old son in the Pico-Union neighborhood on a graffiti spree.
With a can of yellow spray paint, they marked the facades of a pawn shop, laundromat and furniture store with the names of their gangs, according to a a Los Angeles Police Department detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit.
Driving down Normandie Avenue, Martinez and his son came across Kevin Rivera, who was crossing the street, the affidavit says. The muzzle of a handgun poked out from their car’s passenger window, a witness told police. Martinez’s son squeezed the trigger five times, shooting Rivera to death and wounding two others, the detective wrote in the affidavit.
Martinez, 43, and his son are charged with murdering Rivera, whom Martinez believed to belong to a rival gang, the detective wrote in the affidavit.
Martinez has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer who represented Martinez at his arraignment directed questions to the Los Angeles County public defender’s media representatives, who didn’t respond to a request for comment. It wasn’t clear who was representing Martinez’s son, whose case isn’t public because of his age.
Some gang members follow in the footsteps of fathers, uncles or brothers, but it’s rare to see an older relative direct them to commit violence, a former gang member said.
Ramon Mendoza, who once belonged to the Varrio Nuevo Estrada street gang and Mexican Mafia prison gang, said many gangsters don’t want to bring their kids into a lifestyle that often leads to death or prison.
“The hardcore gang members, they seek for the most part to insulate the innocents, their family, from what they are,” Mendoza said. But in some rare cases, he said, “rather than deter and discourage their kids, in some sick way they look at [violence] as a kind of bonding event.”
Martinez has been in and out of prison since 2005 for possessing drugs and guns, according to court records. Nicknamed “Stranger,” he is a member of a Hollywood gang called The Magicians’ Club, or TMC, Det. James Ball of the Los Angeles Police Department wrote in the affidavit.
The evening of Feb. 10, Martinez and his son were recorded by surveillance cameras tagging a stretch of Venice and Pico boulevards, Ball wrote. Police found scrawled on the side of a business “TMC” and “Hellbound.”
A small crew based in the Koreatown and Mid-City neighborhoods, Hellbound is a rival of a more established gang called the Playboys, Ball wrote.
Surveillance footage showed Martinez’s son and his friends tagging a laundromat while the father flashed gang signs at passing cars, the detective wrote.
According to the affidavit, the group piled into a black Honda Accord and traveled to Pico Boulevard and Fedora Avenue, the heart of the Playboys’ territory. In yellow paint, they wrote “Hellbound” and “PBSK” — short for Playboys Killers, Ball wrote.
About four blocks away, Rivera, 30, was walking down Normandie Avenue. The Accord drove past him, then made a U-turn, a witness told detectives. A suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt — believed by police to be Martinez’s son — fired out of the rear passenger window.
Rivera was fatally shot in the back. A man crossing the street was struck in the hip and a woman sitting in her car was grazed by a bullet, according to the affidavit.
Six days later, a prisoner called Martinez, who mentioned a shooting in the recorded call, Ball wrote.
“Four people got dropped and one died,” Martinez said, according to the detective.
The victim was from Playboys, Martinez added. Rivera’s family couldn’t be reached for comment.
“My son did what he had to do, dog,” Martinez said in the recorded call, according to the affidavit. “Honestly I tried to stop him. I tried to grab the gun.”
Detectives allege this wasn’t true. Ball wrote that Martinez handed his son the .40-caliber Glock used to kill Rivera.
Two days after Martinez was arrested on suspicion of Rivera’s murder, LAPD officers in Wilmington detained a man who was driving a Dodge pickup stolen during a home invasion robbery in Perris, Ball wrote. Antonio Alvarez had allegedly tossed a stolen .40-caliber Glock during the pursuit.
Ballistics testing showed the gun was used to kill Rivera, the affidavit says. WhatsApp messages on Alvarez’s phone showed he bought the Glock for $800 five days after Rivera was shot to death, Ball wrote.
The sale was coordinated by someone using a phone that pinged off a cell tower near Centinela State Prison, according to the affidavit. Ball wrote he is still investigating who brokered the sale.
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