Cpl. Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana<\/a> were responding to a stabbing reported at a motel at 10327 Garvey Ave. on June 14. They encountered a man with a handgun and a woman in one of the rooms. At some point she walked out, then gunfire rang out and the two officers were wounded. They later died at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center.<\/p>\nParedes had been with the department since July 2000. Santana was hired in 2021. Both of them grew up in El Monte and sought to give back to the city that raised them, relatives said.<\/p>\n
The man who killed the two officers, 35-year-old Justin Flores, was shot by police while trying to flee. He later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.<\/p>\n
Flores had been convicted for breaking into his grandparents\u2019 home to steal a television in 2011, Gasc\u00f3n said. Then, in 2021, he pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Two other charges were dropped as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, and was ordered to serve 20 days in jail and two years on probation.<\/p>\n
But Gasc\u00f3n said that even if Flores\u2019 most recent case had gone to trial, he could have been out on bail at the time of the shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can \u2018if\u2019 this to death\u2026 but the reality is that when you have the history that this individual (Flores) had, the outcome was appropriate, given the circumstances,\u201d Gasc\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n
He also pointed out that Flores had no prior history of violence, and had managed to stay out of the criminal justice system for almost a decade before his 2021 no contest plea. The terms of the agreement Flores was offered, including its sentence, were \u201d on par with offers in previous administrations,\u201d District Attorney\u2019s officials said the day after the two officers were killed.<\/p>\n
Gasc\u00f3n, a former police officer, campaigned as a reformer seeking to reverse course from decades of a tough-on-crime approach in the criminal justice system. He has discouraged prosecutors from seeking harsher penalties against defendants for prior convictions and other special circumstances.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the California Second Court of Appeals ruled that a district attorney cannot prevent prosecutors from seeking sentencing enhancements under the state\u2019s Three Strikes law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court says we have to allege the strike, but we don\u2019t have to prove the strike,\u201d Gasc\u00f3n said. \u201cWe are still considering this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olga Garcia, the mother of Officer Joseph Santana, was joined by law enforcement, deputy district attorney officials and the widows of other slain officers outside the El Monte Police Department on Friday, June 17 to voice concerns over Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s policies, which she said led to Flores\u2019s premature release.<\/p>\n
\u201cI blame the deaths of my son and his partner on Gasc\u00f3n. Gasc\u00f3n will never know how I feel. Gasc\u00f3n will never know how he destroyed our family,\u201d she said Friday.<\/p>\n
\u00a92022 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit dailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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