South Los Angeles gang members receive lengthy prison sentences for the 2022 murder of LAPD Officer Fernando Arroyos

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Three street gang members were sentenced Friday to lengthy federal prison terms for the robbery and fatal shooting of Los Angeles Police Department Officer Fernando Arroyos, who was shot and killed in January 2022 while off-duty and house-hunting with his girlfriend.

The defendants, Luis Alfredo de la Rosa Rios, 30; Ernesto Cisneros, 25; and Jesse Contreras, 36, pleaded guilty in July 2023 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Rios and Cisneros were sentenced Friday in a packed federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles to 50 years in prison, while Contreras received 35 years.

A fourth defendant, Haylee Marie Grisham, 21, a gang associate who was Rios’ girlfriend, pleaded guilty last year to one count of violent crime in aid of racketeering for participating in Arroyos’ fatal robbery. She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9.

“No one is immune from the impact of gun violence,” U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said during the sentencing hearing that lasted nearly four hours.

“Gun violence can strike anywhere you are, even in Butler, Pennsylvania,” he said, referring to the scene of the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump.

RELATED: Fernando Arroyos, LAPD officer killed while house-hunting with girlfriend, honored at somber funeral

On the evening of Jan. 10, 2022, the defendants were driving around the Florence-Firestone area of ​​South Los Angeles looking for someone to rob when they encountered Arroyos, who was wearing gold chains around his neck, according to plea agreements filed in federal court in Los Angeles.

Rios and Cisneros got out of a black SUV and confronted Arroyos, a three-year LAPD veteran, and his girlfriend as they looked for a home to buy in the area. Arroyos, who was 27 and grew up in South Los Angeles, was assigned to the LAPD’s Olympic Division.

The two gang members pointed their guns at the victims and took personal items from both of them, including a wallet and two silver chains that Arroyos was wearing around his neck. At some point after Cisneros removed the chains from Arroyos, the off-duty officer and the gang members exchanged gunfire, according to court documents.

Arroyos suffered a single gunshot wound, fled the area and collapsed in an alley as the two defendants left the scene in the pickup truck.

Responding police officers found bystanders performing CPR on Arroyos. Officers put Arroyos in a patrol car and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Arroyos’ girlfriend, Angela Mendoza, carrying a framed photograph of the deceased officer, spoke in court Friday with former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva at her side.

“I am reliving the worst day of my life as I ask for the maximum sentence for these degenerates who snatched my love from me,” she said from the podium. “What an exceptional human being was taken from us.”

Mendoza spoke of Arroyos’ sense of humor and singing voice, and thanked Villanueva for taking the case to federal prosecutors instead of local ones to ensure a stricter sentence.

Immediately following the shooting, detectives recovered a loaded handgun from the scene belonging to one of the suspects, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received a report of a man suffering from a gunshot wound in the area of ​​Junction Street and East 60th Street, approximately a mile and a half from the shooting scene.

Investigators later determined the wounded man was Cisneros, who had been shot during the shootout with Arroyos. Contreras was also found in the area hiding inside the garage of his residence in the 5900 block of Junction Street, where a second handgun was recovered.

Rios and Grisham, who were a couple at the time, were later found and taken into custody at their home.

Rios and Contreras also admitted in their plea agreements to armed robbery of two victims outside a bar in the Florence-Firestone area that same day.

The defendants could have faced up to life in prison, but prosecutors agreed to seek sentences of between 35 and 50 years in prison for Ríos and Cisneros, and 35 years for Contreras.

“Gangs bring death and destruction, most often to the very communities they claim to represent,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said Friday.

“These defendants coldly and callously murdered an innocent man who grew up in our community and returned home to give back to the city he loved. I hope the significant sentences we announced today provide some measure of comfort to Officer Arroyos’ family, friends and colleagues.”

Villanueva said at the time of the arrests that he ordered detectives to take the case to federal prosecutors because of his opposition to District Attorney George Gascón’s decision not to seek further sentencing enhancements in gang cases.

Those enhancements in a state murder case can mean the difference between a life sentence with the possibility of parole and never getting out of prison.

Anderson said after sentencing the three defendants that when the gang members decided to rob Arroyos, they “literally threw their lives away.”

City News Service contributed to this report.