Riverside Gang member guilty of killing boy, 13

EVANS STR. GANG Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:09 am

Gang member guilty of killing boy, 13
10:36 PM PDT on Tuesday, June 14, 2011

By RICHARD K. DE ATLEY
The Press-Enterprise

Jurors on Tuesday convicted a gang member in the 2002 shooting death of a Riverside boy who was slain as he sat on the front porch of his home.

Ricardo Estrada Barbarin, now 32, was one of two men who witnesses said walked up to five people in the early morning of July 15, 2002, shouted a gang name and opened fire, police said.

Anthony Sweat, 13, was killed, a victim in a deadly summer and fall of gang and racial violence on the city's Eastside. The violence that would claim the life of another teen boy a few months later spurred demonstrations and brought community action.

Jurors convicted Barbarin of murder and four additional counts of attempted murder. They also found that he was an active member of a criminal gang when the shooting took place and that he did the shooting to further the gang.

Records show Barbarin, who is in custody, asked to leave the courtroom after jurors delivered their first two verdicts. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jean Pfeiffer Leonard, who granted Barbarin's request, set a sentencing date of Sept. 2 at the Riverside County Hall of Justice.

"Thank God it's over. I have a whole lot to say but I am just glad it is over and he got convicted of the crime," said Anthony's mother, Terina Anderson, 42. "I'm very emotional about it. I want to thank everyone who stood behind our family and especially everyone in Riverside," she said by phone from her home in Las Vegas.

Anderson said she had been at the trial but was not able to attend the verdict. She plans to go to the sentencing. It was not a death penalty case.

Witnesses said Anthony, who was black, was among a group of five people gathered on the porch of a home when two males approached, made a reference to an Eastside Hispanic gang, then fired. While the others scrambled toward a nearby field and a fast-food restaurant, Anthony collapsed in an alley behind the home.

Police said Anthony did not have gang ties. Prosecutors in 2006 dropped charges against two teenagers who were initially arrested in Anthony's slaying. Police arrested Barbarin in 2008, saying they had new evidence.

In the months leading up to Anthony's slaying, police had investigated numerous shootings in the Eastside, a racially mixed community roughly between Martin Luther King Boulevard and UCR. Many of the shootings involved suspects who claimed membership in black or Hispanic gangs, police said at the time.

Residents rallied, marched and called for more police presence and more coordination and cooperation between the neighborhood and law enforcement, such as tip lines and occasional roadblocks.

In 2007, District Attorney Rod Pacheco instituted a civil injunction against the East Side Riva gang, associated with much of the 2002 violence, which continued that year even after the shock of Anthony's slaying.

Dane Cox, a 43-year-old youth coach and activist against gang violence, was shot to death in a drive-by shooting on Nov. 1, 2002.

And in October 2002, another 13-year-old boy died in gang violence. Markess Lancaster, who also was black, died when he was fatally shot as he rode in a car with his brother and his brother's friend. He also was not a gang member.

Authorities said the gunfire came from a vehicle that pulled alongside.

The man police said pulled the trigger in that shooting, Daniel Murillo Salgado, 31, was convicted earlier this spring for the murder of Markess. Facing the death sentence, jurors recommended life in prison without parole. Salgado faces sentencing this Friday, also before Judge Leonard.