Two suspects in Canyon Country shooting set for hearing 

Personnel with the Los Angeles County Fire Department treat a gunshot victim at the scene of a shooting before midnight July 4, 2023, in the 24200 block of Arch Street in Newhall. Courtesy photo
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A judge ordered both suspects in a July 4, 2023, shooting back to court for a preliminary hearing in January, according to San Fernando courthouse records. 

Two Santa Clarita Valley residents, Angel Aguero, 20, and Jaime Gutierrez, 34, were arrested on suspicion of murder, and those charges were later reduced to attempted murder.  

Homicide Bureau detectives who investigated a pair of shootings that day said both incidents — a fatal officer-involved shooting and the attempted murder the two suspects are charged with — were related. 

Aguero and Gutierrez are facing one count each and both are due back in court Jan. 15, when the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office is expected to present the evidence, and the judge will decide if there’s enough to merit a trial.  

The prosecution expects its case to take approximately three hours to present and Deputy District Attorney Nick Kang is expected to call three people to testify. The case was continued Monday due to the absence of a witness. 

Fire officials reported that they were dispatched at 10:17 p.m. on Independence Day last year to the 27300 block of Fahren Court in Canyon Country regarding a gunshot victim. 

In court records obtained by The Signal, detectives reported their suspicion that three suspects were involved, who then left the scene of the shooting and headed back to Newhall. 

About 90 minutes later, two of the suspects, 24-year-old Greg Covey and 34-year-old Jaime Gutierrez, were spotted by patrol deputies on Arch Street, near where Covey lived. 

“When deputies made contact with the occupants of that vehicle, the front passenger of the vehicle fled the vehicle on foot. A foot pursuit of that suspect was initiated,” said Lt. Art Spencer of the Homicide Bureau. “(Covey) was momentarily lost, but then they found him again nearby, the second foot pursuit was initiated, which led to the deputy-involved shooting.”  

Spencer said Aguero and Gutierrez were both in custody in connection with the Canyon Country incident. 

Gutierrez was taken into custody after deputies pulled him out of the car following the pursuit. Aguero was arrested by patrol deputies on a warrant by homicide detectives a week later. 

Covey was identified in court documents as a gang member who brandished a handgun to threaten a rival local gang member in a Canyon Country 7-Eleven a little over three months before the shooting. A handgun was later found at the scene of the officer-involved shooting. 

Both Aguero and Martinez remain in custody at North County Correctional Facility in Castaic without bail while they await their next hearing. 

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