By Daniel Larios
Staff Writer

September 18, 2014 – A Santa Monica gang member responsible for a 2013 shooting that broke a three-and-a half-year lull in gang violence will serve 11 years in state prison for attempted murder, police officials said Tuesday.

Levy Ernesto Rodriguez, 25, pleaded guilty at the LAX Superior Courthouse last week to the charge of attempted murder of fellow gang member Jose Villasenor Jr., 34, who was shot in June 2013.

Rodriguez drove by Villasenor, who was riding his bicycle in the 2900 block of Exposition Boulevard in the Pico Neighborhood, an area of Santa Monica that has seen brief, but intense, shooting sprees erupt over the years.

“Rodriguez opened fire on Villasenor striking him five times,” said Sgt. Rudy Camarena, the Police Department spokesman. “Both Rodriguez and Villasenor are documented Santa Monica gang members. The shooting was believed to be the result of an internal gang dispute.”

Rodriguez was arrested in Los Angeles on June 29 during a traffic stop near the corner of Pico and Crenshaw boulevards. Police determined that Rodriguez was staying at a residence in Los Angeles.

Gabriel Casillas, 20, was later arrested and convicted in November 2013 for his connection to the shooting, according to Camarena.

Casillas, also a documented Santa Monica gang member, was sentenced to six years in state prison for attempting to dissuade witnesses from testifying against Rodriguez.

In August 2014, 29-year-old Angela Archuletta, an acquaintance of Rodriguez, was arrested and charged with accessory to the initial crime. Her court proceedings are currently pending.

The June 9 shooting was not the only gang-related incident in Santa Monica in 2013. 

The following Tuesday, 29-year-old Gil Verastegui was killed and another man was critically injured after a man jumped out of a blue Infinity and shot both at point-blank range about a mile and a half from Santa Monica College.

The fatal shooting capped a decade that saw violence continue to take the lives of young Santa Monica residents in or near the Pico Neighborhood.

In 2005, Johnathan Hernandez, Hector Bonilla and Jesse Becerra were killed, with two of the young men brazenly shot multiple times during a local birthday party.

The following year, gang violence took the life of popular Santa Monica High student Eddie Lopez, who was not affiliated with gangs. It also claimed 22-year-old Santa Monica resident Miguel Martin, who, like Juarez, was gunned down in Virginia Avenue Park.

In 2008, Preston Brumfield died of injuries suffered when he was assaulted near the same park, and one month later and less than three blocks away, Byron Lopez, a 28-year-old Latino man, was gunned down.

In November 2009, Richard Juarez, a graduate of Olympic High School, was shot in Virginia Avenue Park at 23rd and Pico .

The last victim killed by gang violence in Santa Monica was Verastegui in 2013.