Santa Rosa man, the last of four co-defendants, gets 19 years in prison for role in 2016 gang shooting

An 18-year-old Santa Rosa man was sentenced this week to 19 years in state prison in connection with a 2016 shooting over gang territory, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s ?Office said.

Kevin Anthony Torres was the last of four men jailed in this case, and he received the longest sentence. He was 16 when he, two other teens and a 25-year-old man drove to the Pioneer 2000 Apartments off Piner Road on Sept. 25, 2016, and asked two teenagers there if they were part of a rival gang, according to prosecutors. The four men said the area was part of their gang’s territory and fought with the other two men.

Torres brandished a handgun during the fight, firing shots that wounded both men, an 18-year-old Santa Rosa teen and a 19-year-old from Santa Rosa who was critically injured, the district attorney’s office said in a statement Monday after the sentencing.

“It is very fortunate that the victims in this case did not lose their life at the hands of this defendant,” District Attorney Jill Ravitch said.

Almost two weeks after the shooting two years ago, Santa Rosa police announced the arrests of four suspects, including Alfonso McCloud, 25, who also had been arrested in 2015 in a violent attack outside a Motel 6 on Cleveland Avenue.

Torres and the other two teens, then 16-year-old Miguel Gonzalez and James Villa, who was 17 at the time, also were arrested in the 2016 gang-related shooting. County prosecutors initially brought charges against the four suspects. However, the cases of the three teens were diverted to juvenile court after the state passed Proposition 57, which gave judges instead of prosecutors, the authority to charge minors as adults. A juvenile court judge eventually ruled all three should be tried as adults, the district attorney’s office said.

Judge Patrick Broderick on Monday ordered Torres to serve 19 years in state prison. He had pleaded no contest to attempted murder with the use of a firearm in a negotiated deal with prosecutors, Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Brian Staebell said.

McCloud also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years in state prison in March 2017, for assault with a semi-automatic weapon with a gang enhancement. Gonzalez faced similar charges and was initially sentenced to 16 years in state prison, but later his sentence was reduced to five years of probation.

Villa was sentenced to eight years in state prison for assault with a semi-automatic weapon with additional enhancements for causing great bodily injury and participating in a gang.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203. On Twitter @nashellytweets