A 24-year-old man was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for an off-duty Monterey Park police officer’s shooting death in what authorities called a botched daytime robbery attempt in a Downey parking lot.
The Norwalk jury deliberated about 40 minutes before finding Carlos Daniel Delcid guilty of the Aug. 8, 2022, killing of Gardiel Solorio, whom jurors were not told was an off-duty police officer.
The panel also found true the special-circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of an attempted robbery and attempted carjacking, along with allegations that he personally discharged a handgun.
Delcid also was found guilty of one count each of shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and possession of a firearm by a felon, along with one count of second-degree robbery involving an April 2022 hold-up in Long Beach.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Porras ordered Delcid to be held without bail while awaiting sentencing Aug. 5.
The defendant is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Deputy District Attorney Michelle Weiske called the attack on Solorio in”a cold-blooded murder in broad daylight,” saying that the victim was struck by five shots fired through the driver’s side window as he reversed his black Dodge Charger in an effort to flee from the parking lot of an LA Fitness gym in the 12700 block of Lakewood Boulevard, near the Glenn Anderson (105) Freeway.
“Each of those shots he had time to think about pulling the trigger again,” the prosecutor said of Delcid, adding that there was “no doubt” that he pulled the trigger.
Defense attorney Rick Sternfeld urged the jury to consider the lesser offenses of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter involving Solorio’s killing, arguing that it was the “only just and fair verdict.”
He told the panel that his client was “not guilty of first-degree murder with premeditation and deliberation,” and said there was “no evidence” to suggest that Delcid was not intoxicated at the time of the killing as the defense contended.
Sternfeld disputed the prosecution’s contention that it was a “fabricated defense,” saying that Delcid could be heard telling a jailhouse operative following his arrest that he had drunk alcohol that morning and smoked marijuana.
Delcid’s lawyer urged the jurors to acquit his client of the robbery charge involving the Long Beach crime several months before Solorio’s killing, arguing that the victim whose necklace and wallet were taken was only “75% confident” when he identified Delcid in a photo line-up 64 days later.
In his rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Geoff Lewin called the evidence against Delcid “absolutely overwhelming.”
The jury was the second sworn in to hear the case.
Shortly after the first trial began in January, the judge declared a mistrial after citing concerns that jurors might have figured out while hearing evidence in the case that Solorio was an off-duty police officer.
Delcid’s attorney initially asked for a mistrial after a Long Beach police officer testified that he received information that a “Monterey Park police officer had been” — before he was quickly cut off by Lewin — and then again requested a mistrial after the lead detective on the case notified prosecutors that he believed he had heard the phrase “off-duty” in a recording that was played for the jury but was not contained in transcripts given to the panel.
Prosecutors had objected to the defense’s request for a mistrial.
But the judge said he couldn’t say for certain that “zero of them” had “put this together” and told attorneys, “I’m not going to take that chance.”
Lewin had told jurors in the first trial that Solorio was “shot five times for refusing to give up that car.”
Delcid was arrested in Long Beach the night of Solorio’s killing, with police discovering a gray hooded sweatshirt and a mask inside the vehicle like the ones seen in surveillance video of the shooting.
The defense attorney noted that alcohol, marijuana and a laughing gas tank were found during a search of the vehicle containing Delcid and two other men, telling the panel that should be taken into consideration.
Delcid was among three people who were charged in connection with the off-duty officer’s killing.
Co-defendant Gerardo Magallanes, now 22, was sentenced to 24 years and eight months in state prison after pleading no contest last year to voluntary manslaughter and unlawful firearm activity, and admitting an allegation that he furnished a firearm, along with a gun allegation.
Magallanes supplied the gun used in the killing and was a back-seat passenger in the vehicle containing the alleged gunman, Carlos Delcid, and the then-17-year-old getaway driver, who was sentenced last year to 11 years in custody after pleading no contest in adult court to voluntary manslaughter, Lewin said last year.
At Magallanes’ sentencing last September, one of the victim’s sisters, Ana, said, , “I wish I could tell you that you deserved to die, but no, that would be too easy. I hope you feel every ounce of pain we have felt these last three years. … To me, you’re as guilty as the guy who pulled the trigger.”
The victim’s older brother, Carlos Solorio, told the judge that the plea deal with Magallanes felt “like another slap in the face” and asked instead for the “maximum sentence allowed” for Magallanes, saying that “anything less is not justice.”
The judge said he had to evaluate whether the plea deal with Magallanes was “outside the norm,” saying he concluded that it was not.
Solorio, who was a rookie just weeks out of the academy, was found unresponsive in his car by authorities and was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting.
Then-Monterey Park Police Department Chief Kelly Gordon called his killing “a senseless act of violence.”
Gordon said at a news conference that Solorio, who grew up in Bell Gardens and graduated from Cal State Los Angeles with a degree in criminal justice, joined the department as a recruit in January, and had just graduated from the sheriff’s training academy in July 2022 before beginning his field training three days later.