The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors renewed a $10,000 reward today for information leading to whoever gunned down a 22-year-old man as he rode in an SUV with his brother and other family members in Compton.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recommended extending the reward in the shooting death of Gerardo Macias. It was set to expire July 14 and will now be available for at least the next 90 days.
Ridley-Thomas said Macias was a dedicated family man who worked for an insurance company in Fullerton. Authorities said the victim had come to the aid of strangers in a car accident shortly before being shot in the head just before midnight March 16 in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall at the intersection of Alondra Boulevard and White Avenue.
Sheriff’s investigators said Macias was at his Compton home when he heard the sound of a traffic collision.
“Gerardo believed someone was gravely injured and asked his brother, Miguel, for a ride to the scene of the collision,” according to a sheriff’s statement. “Miguel agreed and drove Gerardo and six other family members to the scene of the accident …”
The family found two drivers trapped in the wreckage, and Gerardo Macias tended to the victims until paramedics arrived, according to the sheriff’s department.
Macias and his family members, including young children, left the location in their Chevrolet Tahoe and made a U-turn on Alondra Boulevard to get to a nearby gas station.
Miguel Macias then steered the SUV slowly through a strip mall parking lot, where three unfamiliar cars sped across the lot toward the SUV and then abruptly stopped and the occupants fired seven rounds into the Tahoe, according to the sheriff’s department.
Miguel Macias suffered a through-and-through gunshot wound to his left wrist and Gerardo Macias, who was in the front passenger seat, was struck in the head. The brothers’ 22-month-old niece sustained facial injuries from shattered glass and shrapnel, according to the sheriff’s department.
Two of the suspect vehicles were described as dark-colored, four-door sedans and the third as a light-colored Mercedes-Benz with a sunroof. The Mercedes was driven by a female and one of the sedans by a male suspect.
“Detectives believe this murder was unprovoked and without cause,” according to the sheriff’s department. “Gerardo was killed in the presence of close family members, some of whom were impressionable little children. The family lives with the horrible and unforgettable image of Gerardo being shot and killed only a few seats away.”
Anyone with information about the killing was urged to call the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Anonymous tips may be submitted through Crime Stoppers by calling 800-222-TIPS (8477) or at lacrimestoppers.org.
