A judge Friday lopped nearly three years off an ex-con’s sentence for carrying out a 2020 crime spree that included an ambush-style shooting that left two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies wounded in their patrol vehicle outside a Compton transit center, leaving him with a state prison term of 164 years to life.
The case was sent back to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Connie R. Quinones for re-sentencing by a panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal which noted in a ruling last year that two of the four charges of possession of a firearm by a felon on which Deonte Lee Murray was convicted “must be reversed because the prosecution did not prove that he continuously possessed more than two firearms when he committed the shootings in this case.”
Those two counts were dismissed at Friday’s hearing, resulting in two years and eight months being taken off his initial sentence of 166 years and eight months to life.
Murray, now 42, was convicted in September 2023 of two counts of attempted murder of a peace officer, along with one count each of attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, carjacking and robbery, along with the four counts of possession of a firearm by a felon.
At the defendant’s sentencing in November 2023, the judge cited the “heinous and callous nature of the crimes.”
“You creeped up on them,” the judge said of the defendant’s actions involving the Sept. 12, 2020, attack on Deputies Claudia Apolinar and Emmanuel Perez-Perez outside a Compton transit center. “It’s all caught on video … Luckily they both survived.”
Apolinar — who said she missed two years of work as a result of her injuries — told the judge then that “a coward woke up that day with the intention of murdering deputies.”
“Evil found us that day … We were pushed to our limits,” she said, calling Murray’s surprise attack a “cowardly act.”
“He failed and we survived,” she said. “My life will never be the same.”
Perez-Perez told the judge that it has been “a long three years recovering” and said the “mental injuries are going to last forever.” He said he sees the scar on his forehead that serves as a “reminder of almost dying,” adding that he is happy that justice is being served.
Sheriff Robert Luna sat in the Compton courtroom in support of the two wounded deputies during the sentencing in 2023.
“I came as a sign of support representing not only the men and women of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but I believe our community, to personally thank these deputies not only for their service, but everything they’ve gone through and the family members that were here,” the sheriff told reporters outside the courthouse. “Thank God these two deputies survived.”
He said he was “very satisfied” with the judge’s decision to impose the maximum term on Murray for what he called his “violent behavior.”
“But to say I’m happy, I can’t see anybody being happy. What a tragedy,” the sheriff said.
“I have two deputies who I consider heroes that will be impacted not only physically but mentally for the rest of their life. They were shaken up today because this brought back that horrific night for them … These two deputies were sitting in their car, radio car, in uniform, protecting our community and this individual decided that this was the night he was going to try and kill two deputies … It was a straight-up ambush.”
The judge rejected the defense’s request in 2023 to strike Murray’s 2015 conviction for criminal threats, while acknowledging that a packet of information about the defendant’s childhood is “heartbreaking” and explains the hardship and dysfunction that he faced.
“Our system has failed him many times,” Murray’s trial attorney, Kate Hardie, said of her client.
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Lonseth told jurors during the trial that Murray shot four people and tried to kill three of them, including the two sheriff’s deputies whom he allegedly tried to ambush in what the prosecutor said was “no impulse.”
“They’re alive because of, frankly, a miracle,” Lonseth said, citing the “heroic actions” of Apolinar in trying to aid her partner despite being wounded herself in the jaw and arms.
The prosecutor had told jurors during his opening statement that Murray “lost it” and “sought to take out revenge” after sheriff’s deputies shot and killed his best friend, Sam Herrera, while serving a search warrant in Compton on Sept. 10, 2020, two days before Apolinar and Perez-Perez were ambushed.
Murray allegedly “unloaded over and over again” by firing upon a man he mistakenly believed was a detective in an unmarked car near the Compton courthouse on Sept. 10, 2020, then driving away in a black Mercedes-Benz that had been carjacked nine days earlier from a man who was shot in the leg with a rifle, Lonseth told the panel.
The defendant — who abandoned the Mercedes-Benz near an elementary school — was arrested Sept. 15, 2020, after leading police on a chase in which he tossed a “ghost gun” from the Toyota Solara he was driving and then running into a neighborhood, where he was subsequently found hiding under a chicken coop in a resident’s backyard, the prosecutor said.
Ballistics testing subsequently determined that the .40-caliber weapon had been used to shoot the sheriff’s deputies, authorities said.
Murray’s attorney told jurors her client was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and grief-stricken over his best friend’s shooting death by other sheriff’s deputies two days earlier.
The defense lawyer told jurors the “closest person” to Murray had been killed, calling the days between Sept. 10 and Sept. 12 of that year “the worst time in Mr. Murray’s life.”
Hardie told jurors her client’s actions were “impulsive” and fueled by alcohol, methamphetamine and grief over his best friend’s death.
She told the panel they had heard about evidence of Murray’s intoxication from six separate sources, saying that and his mental state negate both premeditation and intent to kill involving the attempted murder charges.
The defense attorney accused the prosecutor of trying to sway the jurors’ emotions by arguing that it would have been a murder case if it wasn’t for Apolinar’s actions.
The defense lawyer told jurors the defense was “not asking you … to let him go,” but was asking them to “follow the law.”
Surveillance video shows the gunman walking up to the passenger side of the sheriff’s vehicle, firing and then quickly leaving, and Apolinar subsequently coming to her partner’s aid followed by the two — both of their uniforms stained with blood — hurrying to a waiting patrol vehicle that rushed them to a hospital.
Apolinar was praised for helping her wounded partner despite her own injuries, with then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey calling her actions “heroic.” The deputy was subsequently honored with the 2021 American Legion, Department of California’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for Valor award.
Her partner was shot in the forehead and one of his arms.