Jonathan Fajardo

The young man, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled at the waist, was poised on the witness stand, politely addressing attorneys as "sir" and "ma'am" as he matter-of-factly described the night he and other gang members took turns stabbing a suspected snitch 80 times in a cramped, cluttered garage. "He didn't scream or nothing," testified Jose Covarrubias, now 24, describing how he plunged a folding blade hard into 21-year-old Christopher Ash's stomach four or five times as he lay dying on his back.

The last defendant in the hate-crime killing of 14-year-old Cheryl Green was sentenced Wednesday to 238 years to life in prison. Ernesto Alcarez was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime last month in the killing of Green, a black girl who was gunned down while standing with friends on a street in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alcarez's sentence was imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus. Prosecutors said Alcarez acted as a lookout for the shooter, 204th Street gang member Jonathan Fajardo.

A Los Angeles jury ordered the death penalty Monday for a 22-year-old Latino gang member convicted in the hate-crime killing of a 14-year-old black girl and the stabbing death of a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area. Jonathan Fajardo, who was 18 at the time of the killings, nonchalantly looked around the courtroom as the verdict was read. The jury found that he should receive death for his first-degree murder convictions for the slayings of Cheryl Green and Christopher Ash. Fajardo was eligible for the death penalty because the jury accepted special circumstance allegations including multiple murder, killing a witness, committing a hate crime based on race and committing the crime for a gang.

A Los Angeles jury ordered the death penalty Monday for a 22-year-old Latino gang member convicted in the hate-crime killing of a 14-year-old black girl and the stabbing death of a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area. Jonathan Fajardo, who was 18 at the time of the killings, nonchalantly looked around the courtroom as the verdict was read. The jury found that he should receive death for his first-degree murder convictions for the slayings of Cheryl Green and Christopher Ash. Fajardo was eligible for the death penalty because the jury accepted special circumstance allegations including multiple murder, killing a witness, committing a hate crime based on race and committing the crime for a gang.

Jonathan Fajardo is a member of a Latino gang from Harbor Gateway that has a history of attacking blacks. He is accused of gunning down a 14-year-old girl he did not know just because she was black and, a month later, of helping to kill a possible witness, who was stabbed 80 times. His alleged crimes have highlighted interracial gang violence in parts of Los Angeles and beyond, drawing attention from the FBI director, mayor, police chief and community leaders.

In the days after 14-year-old Cheryl Green was gunned down, residents, activists and politicians took to the streets of Harbor Gateway, decrying the senseless, racially motivated slaying of a child and protesting the gang activity that long plagued the area. But a different message quietly appeared on the sidewalk just a few feet from the driveway where Green died. The message, in black spray paint, read "204ST NK. " The graffiti, a reference to a racial epithet and killing African Americans, was a brazen pronouncement of the vitriolic racial hatred of the 204th Street gang that resulted in the loss of two young, innocent lives, a prosecutor told jurors this week.

The last defendant in the hate-crime killing of 14-year-old Cheryl Green was sentenced Wednesday to 238 years to life in prison. Ernesto Alcarez was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime last month in the killing of Green, a black girl who was gunned down while standing with friends on a street in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alcarez's sentence was imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus. Prosecutors said Alcarez acted as a lookout for the shooter, 204th Street gang member Jonathan Fajardo.

Two Latino gang members were convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in a hate-crime trial involving the deaths of a 14-year-old black girl and a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles. The jury deliberated for less than two days before convicting Jonathan Fajardo, 22, and Daniel Aguilar, 23, members of the 204th Street gang, of all charges. Fajardo was found guilty of killing Cheryl Green, whose slaying the jury found was a hate crime motivated by her race.

One moment, it was an idyllic December afternoon with a group of young people hanging out in the driveway, one young man showing his 6-year-old cousin how to play Tetris on a cellphone. In the next, a gunman walked up and began firing into the crowd, sending people screaming and running, leaving a 14-year-old girl dead and others injured. What led to the 2006 death of Cheryl Green was not a calculated crime but an indiscriminate racial hatred that has long plagued a narrow strip of Los Angeles squeezed between Torrance and Carson, known as the Harbor Gateway area, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Members of a predominantly Latino street gang pleaded not guilty Thursday to the shooting death of a black teenager and the stabbing death of a possible witness weeks later. Jonathan Fajardo, 18, and Ernesto Alcarez, 20, of the 204th Street gang were charged with murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in the Dec. 15 shooting of Cheryl Green, 14, in a Harbor Gateway neighborhood.

Two Latino gang members were convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in a hate-crime trial involving the deaths of a 14-year-old black girl and a potential witness in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles. The jury deliberated for less than two days before convicting Jonathan Fajardo, 22, and Daniel Aguilar, 23, members of the 204th Street gang, of all charges. Fajardo was found guilty of killing Cheryl Green, whose slaying the jury found was a hate crime motivated by her race.

The young man, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and shackled at the waist, was poised on the witness stand, politely addressing attorneys as "sir" and "ma'am" as he matter-of-factly described the night he and other gang members took turns stabbing a suspected snitch 80 times in a cramped, cluttered garage. "He didn't scream or nothing," testified Jose Covarrubias, now 24, describing how he plunged a folding blade hard into 21-year-old Christopher Ash's stomach four or five times as he lay dying on his back.

In the days after 14-year-old Cheryl Green was gunned down, residents, activists and politicians took to the streets of Harbor Gateway, decrying the senseless, racially motivated slaying of a child and protesting the gang activity that long plagued the area. But a different message quietly appeared on the sidewalk just a few feet from the driveway where Green died. The message, in black spray paint, read "204ST NK. " The graffiti, a reference to a racial epithet and killing African Americans, was a brazen pronouncement of the vitriolic racial hatred of the 204th Street gang that resulted in the loss of two young, innocent lives, a prosecutor told jurors this week.

One moment, it was an idyllic December afternoon with a group of young people hanging out in the driveway, one young man showing his 6-year-old cousin how to play Tetris on a cellphone. In the next, a gunman walked up and began firing into the crowd, sending people screaming and running, leaving a 14-year-old girl dead and others injured. What led to the 2006 death of Cheryl Green was not a calculated crime but an indiscriminate racial hatred that has long plagued a narrow strip of Los Angeles squeezed between Torrance and Carson, known as the Harbor Gateway area, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Jonathan Fajardo is a member of a Latino gang from Harbor Gateway that has a history of attacking blacks. He is accused of gunning down a 14-year-old girl he did not know just because she was black and, a month later, of helping to kill a possible witness, who was stabbed 80 times. His alleged crimes have highlighted interracial gang violence in parts of Los Angeles and beyond, drawing attention from the FBI director, mayor, police chief and community leaders.

Police on Friday announced the arrest of an 18-year-old Latino gang member in connection with the killing of a 14-year-old African American girl -- a shooting authorities described as a hate crime. Gang investigators from the Harbor station arrested Jonathan Fajardo on Thursday in the Dec. 15 shooting death of Cheryl Green. She was killed in her Harbor Gateway neighborhood while she and friends stood on one of the area's narrow streets. Three others were wounded.