SAN JOSE — At age 22, Salvador Mexicano’s life has centered on gangs, poverty, violence and prison.
Mexicano’s father was sentenced to 30 years behind bars when Mexicano was just five. Two years later, he saw his stepfather lying on the ground, dead or dying from a gunshot wound suffered at his sister’s baptism. Two of his uncles were murdered, and another survived a shooting. By age 14, he’d lost two close friends to gun violence, according to court records.
By his 18th birthday, Mexicano had not only joined a notorious subset of the Norteños, he’d killed for the gang, twice. Both shootings targeted homeless men in Salinas, who were perceived as rivals by their killers. After the first fatal shooting, he became a “certified” member of the Salinas Acosta Plaza Norteños by getting an “SAP” tattooed on his chest. After being sent to jail for selling drugs on behalf of gang leaders at age 19, he and others stabbed a man in the Monterey County jail in a targeted attack known as a “removal,” court records show.
Now 22, Mexicano has been sent to federal prison to serve a 19-year sentence, according to court records. He is currently at an Oklahoma City transfer center prison, but his final destination has yet to be announced. His prison sentence, handed down on Jan. 13 by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, was part of a massive prosecution aimed at Norteño “regiments” in Salinas and San Jose, as well as seasoned members of the Nuestra Familia prison gang who control them.
Mexicano’s tragic life, detailed in court filings before his sentence, began a dark turn when he became a gang member or associate at age 11. In September 2020, when he was 17, he and other SAP members accosted two men in a dark, wooded area around Carr Lake, behind the Acosta Plaza townhomes in Salinas. They made the victims get on their knees, then shot them. Prosecutors say Mexicano shot one of the men in the head, and another person shot the second victim — but authorities didn’t specify who they believe shot whom. One of the men, Roberto Vargas Hernandez, 38, died. The other, 28 at the time, survived.
The second killing, also committed before Mexicano’s 18th birthday, involved SAP members accosting a man in the same wooded area, forcing him to strip to check for gang tattoos, and shooting him dead. A magazine with Mexicano’s DNA was found at the homicide scene. Mexicano later admitted to involvement in both killings and other gang crimes while pleading guilty to a federal racketeering charge, court records show. The victim has never been publicly identified, but died on March 23, 2021.
In accepting a lengthy prison sentence, Mexicano joins dozens of others who felt the federal government’s wrath in 2021. A series of indictments that year targeted Nuestra Familia members or associates with charges that included murders, prison stabbings, drug smuggling, robbery plots, extortion, and money laundering throughout the Bay Area and Monterey County.
Almost all of the cases have resolved since then, court filings show, mostly through guilty pleas. Last year, four Nuestra Familia leaders were sentenced to federal prison after a jury convicted them of ordering attempted murders and other violence from behind bars.
The large-scale prosecution has resulted not only in lengthy prison terms, but also some unexpected transformations. One of the defendants, formerly a San Jose gang leader, found new purpose painting murals inside the Dublin jail where he was housed while his case was pending. Another talked about the fulfillment he got from volunteer work while out of custody awaiting a resolution in his case. A third became a government informant, testifying against his former fellow Nuestra Familia leaders about the split in the gang that caused him to leave that life behind, culminating with a prison riot where he was stabbed and nearly lost his life.
As for Mexicano, his attorney expressed hope for his future after prison, writing in a sentencing brief that the teenaged killer was once described by elementary school teachers as a “very dedicated student” who was “very well-behaved,” “very polite,” and a “good boy.”
“When he is eventually released, Mr. Mexicano will be decades older than when he engaged in the racketeering activity and he’ll have been long-removed from the neighborhood and violence that have led him to this point in his life,” defense attorney Matthew Dirkes wrote on Mexicano’s behalf.
