A gang member was found guilty of the murder of two men after he shot at a group of people painting over his gang graffiti outside a Northridge ice cream shop in April 2023.
A jury found Jamal Jackson, 26, of Panorama City, guilty of two counts of first degree murder and three counts of willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted murder on Tuesday, March 11.
The jury also found the special circumstances of lying in wait to be true for the murder charges. They deliberated for about two hours, according to Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Kang.
Around 6:30 a.m. on April 15, 2023, Jackson left a gang graffiti tag on the wall of a Northridge ice cream shop and left. Jackson then returned hours later around 12:30 p.m. and when he did, he found a group who was repainting the wall to cover the graffiti, according to witness testimony from Victor Gomez, one of the men who was hired for the job.
Gomez testified he had seen the graffiti and offered the shop owner to paint the wall with another man for $100 each.
But when Jackson returned and found the men painting, he shot at the group, according to testimony.
Juan Lopez-Suarez, 39, of Nicaragua, one of the men hired to paint, was shot and died later that day at a hospital. Bystander Benjamin Marin, 69, was also shot and died months later. Others were injured. None of the victims had any ties to gangs.
During opening statements of Jackson’s trial on March 7, prosecutor Kang told the jury that Jackson meant to kill when he shot 12 rounds at the group of people outside of the ice cream shop.
“I just made the news. Can’t really say what I did,” wrote Jackson on the day of the shooting in a note found on his phone via warrant.
Defense attorney Ilya Alekseyeff told the jury that Jackson didn’t mean to kill when he shot off the dozen rounds. Jackson was shot months before the April shooting, and mistook the people outside the ice cream shop for rival gang members, Alekseyeff told the jury.
A judge will sentence Jackson on Wednesday, March 19. He could face life in prison without parole.