2023-05-26 14:28:02
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man who was jailed for 33 years for attempted murder has been found not guilty and released, the Los Angeles County prosecutor’s office announced.
Daniel Saldana, 55, was convicted in 1990 of opening fire on a car containing six teenagers leaving a high school football game in Baldwin Park in East Los Angeles. Two students were injured, but survived.
The defendants in the attack said they believed the youths were gang members, authorities said.
Saldana, who was 22 at the time of the shooting and a construction worker, was one of three accused in the attack. Convicted of the attempted murder of six people and shooting into an occupied vehicle, he was sentenced to 45 years in state prison.
Saldana attended a press conference with prosecutor George Gascón in which his exoneration was announced Thursday. He said that he was grateful for his freedom.
“It’s a tough fight, waking up every day knowing you’re innocent, and here I am locked in a cell, begging for help,” Saldana said, according to the Southern California News Group. “I feel so happy that this day has come,” he added.
Gascón’s office began investigating after learning in February that another convicted worker said during a 2017 parole hearing that Saldana “did not participate in any way in the shooting and was not present during the incident,” the prosecutor said.
He did not add further details of the case, but apologized to Saldana and his family.
“I know this won’t give you back the decades you spent in prison, but I hope our apology gives you some comfort as you start your new life,” he said.
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