2 Charged in Gang-Related Murder of Teen Girls Found in Los Angeles Park

A gang feud is allegedly behind the brutal murder of two teenage girls whose bodies were found in October in a popular Los Angeles park, Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck said Thursday. 

"This is a case that is gang motivated," Beck said at a late afternoon press conference. "This was motivated by hatred between gangs and unfortunately these two very young very innocent victims fell prey to that." 

The bodies of Gabriela Calzada, 19, and her friend Briana Gallegos, 17, were found along a walking path on October 28 in Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Montecito Heights. Both teenagers suffered blunt-force trauma. Calzada, who worked with the city's Summer Night Lights youth program and had dreams of becoming a firefighter, was also shot with a rifle. 

Beck said Calzada and Gallegos, a student at Sonia Sotomayor Learning Academies in Glassell Park, were "known to the suspects" and "specifically targeted by those suspects." 

Beck declined to give a motive for the crime. 

"Almost 60 percent of our homicides were gang involved," Beck said. "Unfortunately these two young ladies have become part of that gruesome statistic. They were young vibrant women who certainly didn’t deserve to die." 

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Earlier in the day, prosecutors charged 17-year-old Dallas Stone Pineda and Jose Antonio Echeverria, 18, with capital murder. Echeverria, who was already in custody for an unrelated shooting, is eligible for the death penalty, but Pineda cannot be sent to death row due to his age. 

Both men appeared in jail attire at an afternoon court hearing. Superior Court Judge Sergio Tapia ordered them held without bail. An arraignment hearing is scheduled for March 8.

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