The third of three defendants accused in the April 21, 2024, shooting of an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer in Valencia took a plea deal Tuesday, according to L.A. County Superior Court records.
An alcohol-fueled party at the officer’s home after Hart High School’s prom that year led to a physical confrontation, a gun brandishing in the officer’s home, a shotgun brandishing by the officer to clear the party and then a retaliatory shooting by three Newhall gang members sometime before 4 a.m., according to witnesses at the preliminary hearing.
Hector Sandoval, 22, was scheduled for his final pretrial hearings Tuesday when he pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon, as well as an allegation that his crime caused a great bodily injury, to wit, a bullet wound that shattered the off-duty officer’s femur, according to court records.
While he was one of three suspects, the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office has said it believes it was Sandoval who did the shooting that morning.
Judge Kevin Rosenberg sentenced Sandoval to a total of nine years in state prison, with a mid-term of six years for the assault charge and an additional three years, to be served consecutively, for the special allegation.
As a result of his plea deal, charges that Sandoval stole the truck used in the shooting from a Newhall home and allegations that he was on parole at the time his crime was committed were dismissed, according to the minute order from Rosenberg’s courtroom.
Sandoval also was given credit for more than 860 days in custody, 685 days of actual time served and another 183 days for “good time/work time,” according to the minute order.
Sandoval was ordered not to own guns and was served a protective order to stay away from the officer. He was taken into custody following his sentencing.
The Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, which investigated the incident, told the DA’s Office that the off-duty officer who brandished the shotgun to break up the party was the victim. He testified that he knew the suspects and their gang affiliation, and he took out a shotgun around 3:30 a.m. on the morning of the party, after a fight had broken out and he saw a gun brandished, according to his testimony.
During cross-examination, the defense presented evidence that the officer was under the influence when he grabbed the shotgun to clear the party. Video showed the officer chasing people out into the street while using racial slurs after he tried to clear the party.
Hector Sandoval was one of three convicted in the incident.
Rosenberg sentenced Anthony Alexis Sandoval, 26, to a total of three years in state prison at a prior hearing.
Anthony Alexis Sandoval admitted to being one of the three people who came back to the house after the party was cleared with a shotgun. He also received a two-year sentence for a December 2023 arrest on suspicion of receiving stolen goods, which is to run concurrent with his other sentence.
One of the 17-year-old boys who knew the party’s chaperone, a Hart High employee at the time, was charged in open court with one count of assault with a firearm and one count of assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury.
He admitted to the second charge, according to an email from Venusse Dunn, a representative for the DA’s Office.
The juvenile suspect, a 17-year-old boy from Newhall, was monitored for 90 days of electronic surveillance at home, and a program known as Home on Probation, an L.A. County Probation Department program that returns juveniles to their parents with a curfew and court-ordered stipulations.
