Richard Flores, a 25-year-old man, was sentenced Friday, Dec. 12, to 44 years to life in prison for fatally shooting Jefferson Diaz, a 30-year-old man, in Anaheim back in 2021.
According to Flores’ defense attorneys, the incident followed a quarrel about a vehicle purchase.
On October 23, Flores was convicted of second-degree murder.
On April 16, 2021, just before midnight, Flores fatally shot Diaz with an AR-15-style weapon in the 1700 block of West Glenoaks Avenue, roughly a quarter-mile west of Euclid Street.
Prosecutors claimed that Flores went seeking for Diaz in an alley. When Flores saw Diaz in his garage, the victim repeatedly implored him to “put the gun down.”
Flores exited the area at approximately 5:50 a.m.
Davis was transferred to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
SWAT officers from Anaheim and Fullerton began yard-by-yard searches to locate Flores. The search involved over 40 police officers.
Anaheim police deployed a helicopter to monitor the surrounding region and a megaphone to warn nearby Anaheim and Fullerton residents to stay inside their houses, indicating that an armed suspect was on the loose. The surrounding schools were put on lockdown for the duration of the hunt.
Police captured Flores around 10:12 a.m. near Fullerton’s 600 block of South Brookhurst Road.
According to authorities, Flores reportedly buried the firearm used in the shooting near his uncle’s Pomona house.
The defendant’s lawyers claimed that the shooting was accidental. That argument failed, and Flores now faces a lengthy prison sentence.
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