Three 19-year-olds sentenced for Thermal drive-by shooting

Fourteen people inside a Thermal home will spend the next few years living with the memory of a December night when bullets rained down on their windows. On Thursday, a Riverside County judge handed down prison terms to the three 19-year-old men who carried out that drive-by attack, concluding a case that began with a volley of gunfire and ended with a car abandoned ten miles away.

Eric Orozco Diaz, Guillermo Alexander Martinez, and Gustavo Isbojet Barrera Pena each pleaded guilty in August to 16 counts of firearm assault. They also admitted to two counts of recklessly discharging a gun, one count of shooting at an occupied dwelling, and one count of firing from a moving vehicle. The pleas were entered directly with Judge Susanne Cho, bypassing any pretrial negotiation between the defense and the District Attorney’s Office.

Judge Cho handed out the sentences during a hearing at the Larson Justice Center in Indio. Martinez received the longest term of 11 years. Diaz and Pena each received eight years. The men had no prior felony convictions in county adult court, and the specific motive for the attack was not made public.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Jarred Bishop detailed the sequence of events that led to their arrest. Just before 10 p.m. on December 5, the defendants drove to a house in the 88000 block of Avenue 70 near Fillmore Street. They fired multiple rounds at the property, missing the nine men and five women inside. The victims called 911, and patrol units arrived shortly after.

According to Bishop, a vehicle drove onto the street while deputies were on scene. An occupant fired several rounds toward the officers, striking one of the patrol cars. No deputies were injured, and they did not return fire. Instead, they pursued the suspect vehicle until it disappeared from view. Deputies later found an abandoned car matching the suspect’s description in the 63000 block of Landon Lane, roughly 10 miles northwest of the original shooting location.

Pena was found after midnight on December 6 when officers contacted him at the location of the abandoned car. He attempted to run but was quickly apprehended. Two days later, Diaz and Martinez were taken into custody after being summoned to the sheriff’s station on Airport Boulevard in Thermal. The victims were identified in court documents by first names or initials, including A.G.C., D.S., and “Jocelyn.”