A respected member of the Mexican Mafia was wounded in a shooting Saturday that left a second man dead in Los Angeles County, authorities said.
At 11 p.m., Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies responded to the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall on Valley View Avenue in La Mirada, where they found two men with gunshot wounds in the parking lot, said Lt. Steven De Jong.
Eric Ortiz, 34, died of gunshot wounds to the chest, De Jong said. The lieutenant declined to identify the surviving victim, who remains in hospital in critical condition. A police source who was not authorized to speak publicly identified him as Juan Garcia, a member of the Mexican Mafia known as “Topo.”
De Jong said a group of non-veteran gang members rented the VFW hall for a gathering. Most of those present had left by the time police arrived, and De Jong said his detectives “didn't have much information.”
Originally from the Florencia-13 gang, Garcia, 63, served more than 17 years in federal prison for racketeering. He was convicted of rioting at the Lompoc prison in 2003.
The ruckus started after inmates made a batch of illegal liquor known as pruno, according to a police report reviewed by The Times. The lieutenant was escorting the inmate to his office for a breathalyzer test when Garcia stepped in front of him.
“You're not taking anyone,” he told the lieutenant, then shoved him. “Den les en la madre,” Garcia said to other inmates in the cell, which prison officials interpreted as an order to beat the guards.
Eight inmates attacked the lieutenant, beating, kicking and choking him, the report said. When he and about 40 other workers tried to escape from the prison, Garcia demanded that one of the officers apologize to him.
The policeman hesitated. The prisoner hit him in the face. “I'm sorry,” he told Garcia, who let the workers go, according to the report. The document says that they went with a Muslim teacher who had been beaten unconscious and a food worker who had been attacked with a broomstick.
The cell was emptied by prison officials, Garcia broke all the glass in the cell and set off the fire extinguisher, the report said. With the help of other inmates, he blocked the entrance with washing machines and vending machines, then smashed all the televisions, microwaves, sprinkler systems and ice machines. Other prisoners also beat a prisoner who did not participate in the competition, according to the report.
The associate director issued riot gear and masks to security guards, who quelled the chaos with tear gas, pepper spray, and “multiple grenades,” the document said. 28 staff members and four inmates, including Garcia, suffered injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to hernias and severe head injuries.
“This was a show of force on the part of inmate Garcia,” the investigator wrote in the report.
After pleading guilty to treason in a government agency, Garcia was sentenced in 2005 to an additional six years on top of his fraud conviction.
A year after his release in 2020, Los Angeles Police Department officers were patrolling 64th Street in South LA when they saw a silver Volkswagen Passat double-parked on the wrong side of the street, according to the inspection report.
They saw the driver, Garcia, handing a gun to a man standing next to the car, the report said. The man took off and ran away. When police arrested him, the 31-year-old Florencia-13 member appeared “afraid to answer my questions and denied knowing Garcia,” the arresting officer wrote in the report.
Convicted of possession of a firearm as a felon, Garcia was sent back to state prison in 2022 to serve 15 months. Before he was sentenced, Steve Quinonez, executive director of the Florence Firestone Community Organization, wrote in a letter to the judge that Garcia volunteered for his group.
“A great leader with a big heart,” Garcia advised young people not to take “the wrong path in life,” he wrote.
De Jong, the sheriff's deputy, asked that anyone with information about Saturday's shooting detectives call (323) 890-5500.
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