Police arrest man they believe shot and killed street vendor<\/a><\/p>\nAfter briefly speaking with Perez, Vega pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot him in the head before searching his pockets and fleeing the scene.<\/p>\n
Authorities said Perez was targeted while working to earn a living serving the Fresno community.<\/p>\n
Detectives identified Vega through witness interviews, surveillance video and other investigative leads. He was arrested four days later, on March 25, 2021.<\/p>\n
Perez’s killing sparked outrage across Fresno. <\/p>\n
City leaders condemned the violence, describing Perez as a hardworking father who was simply trying to provide for his family. <\/p>\n
Community members rallied behind the Perez family, and local officials announced a reward for information that ultimately went unclaimed after police solved the case.<\/p>\n
During sentencing, Perez’s family submitted victim impact statements describing the lasting pain caused by his death.<\/p>\n
In a written statement read to the court, Perez’s eldest son described his father as “a proud, hardworking man. We, his family, were his pride and joy.”<\/p>\n
Demarcus Jaime Vega didn’t just end the life of a human that day, he took the rest of our lives with him and altered them.<\/p>\n
Because Vega was 18-years-old at the time of the shooting, California law allows him to be considered for a Youthful Offender Parole Hearing after serving the minimum portion of his sentence required by law. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors noted that such a hearing does not guarantee release but allows the Board of Parole Hearings to determine whether an inmate has demonstrated rehabilitation and is suitable for parole.<\/p>\n
The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office thanked the Fresno Police Department for its investigation. <\/p>\n
The case was prosecuted by Senior Deputy District Attorney Liz Owen of the Homicide Unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 A Fresno man has been sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-401539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}