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He said that he had received threatening telephone calls from the East Side Dukes, a local Latino gang. The following day, he showed friends the letters “ESD” spray-painted on the backyard patio.
The gang unit of the sheriff’s department concluded that the murders were not gang related and that the grafitti found in the house and backyard did not appear genuine or to have been written in the distinctive style of the East Side Dukes. Moreover, it would be unusual for graffiti to be hidden in a backyard or inside a house rather than the front of the house, as the gang’s purpose was to claim territory and to threaten others.
The East Side Dukes typically performed their killings in drive-by shootings or after knocking on a victim’s door and calling him outside; they used graffiti to announce their killings to the whole neighborhood, usually including the gang member’s street name and identifying the intended victims. They did not ordinarily intentionally harm others living in their neighborhood, even if they were African-American, like defendant and his family. An investigator was told by members of the East Side Dukes that they would not have committed a crime of this kind.
Defendant also took steps to suggest that members of the East Side Dukes, not he, committed the murders. A few days before his parents’ return, he showed friends threatening graffito that he had “found” in his backyard; after the murders, similar graffito in matching spray paint was found in the living room above defendant’s handprint. Both graffiti were written using the same kind of spray paint that was found in a closet in defendant’s house. During the police investigation, he boasted to his friend that they had no case against him, and stated that he would continue to blame the murders on the gang.
The People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Deondre Arthur Staten, Defendant and Appellant. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. KA006698, Alfonso M. Bazan, Judge. No. S025122. Nov. 9, 2000.
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