At about 6:30 p.m. on September 19, 2001, 25-year-old Raymond Baker, a member of the Dirty Old Men (DOM) street gang, was fatally shot near the intersection of Figueroa Street and 41 st Place in Los Angeles, California. His body was found on the sidewalk near a pay phone. He had been shot five times.
The police interviewed two witnesses at the scene. Fabiola Diaz was in her third-floor apartment that looked out onto 41 st Place. She said she heard gunshots and looked. She saw a man with a gun getting into the passenger side of a blue car which possibly was a 1980’s two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass. She said the man was a skinny Black man. She did not see the driver.
Diaz’s husband, Jose Quintanilla, was in a liquor store at the corner of 41 st Place and Figueroa Street. He said he heard four or five gunshots and ran outside. He saw a man running to the driver’s side door of a blue car. He said the car appeared to be a four-door 1984 Cutlass Supreme. He said the man who got behind the wheel was Black, about 22 to 25 years old, with a short Afro hairstyle, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 160 to 170 pounds. Quintanilla said there was another man in the passenger seat, whom he could only describe as a Black man.
Several days later, Baker’s girlfriend, Shequina Rudolph, read a newspaper article about the shooting that described the car that Quintanilla and Diaz saw. Two weeks later, Rudolph saw a similar car in the neighborhood, took down the license plate number, and called the police. She also told the police that she had heard a rumor that a member of the Rollin’ 40s Crips street gang known as “J-Rock” had shot Baker and that another Rollin’ 40s gang member, “Tiny G-Biscuit,” also was involved.
Police determined the car was a blue 1981 Chevrolet registered to Keisha Anderson and that her husband, 23-year-old Michael Anderson, a reputed member of the Rollin’ 40s with the moniker of “Tiny G-Biscuit,” had been issued traffic citations while driving the car.
On December 17, 2001, police assembled a photographic lineup that included Anderson’s photograph. Diaz did not make an identification. Quintanilla said that Anderson “looked like” the man who got into the driver’s side of the blue car after the shooting. Quintanilla and Diaz were shown a separate photographic lineup containing a photograph of Joe Bryant, whose gang moniker was “J-Rock.” Neither made an identification.
Quintanilla also viewed a live lineup containing Anderson, but did not make an identification. Shown a photograph of the blue Chevrolet, Quintanilla said it looked like the car he saw, but he was not certain.
On December 28, 2001, Anderson was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder.
At a preliminary hearing, Quintanilla gave a different account. He said he was coming out of the liquor store when the shots were fired, and he ran back inside. Although in his first statement to police said he saw a man run to the passenger side of the blue car, at the hearing, Quintanilla said he looked out and saw a man running to the driver’s side. When asked if he saw anyone in the courtroom who resembled that man, Quintanilla said, “No.” He admitted he had difficulty telling Black people apart.
Following the hearing, Anderson was formally charged with one count of first-degree murder and that a gun had been used and that the shooting was committed for the benefit of a street gang.
On November 6, 2002, Anderson went to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. A mistrial was declared when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Anderson went to trial a second time in March 2003.
Diaz testified that she heard gunfire, and then she saw a man get into the passenger side of the blue car. She said she was reluctant to testify because she feared retaliation.
Quintanilla testified and did not identify Anderson. He also said he feared retaliation and did not want to be involved in the case. He said the only reason he picked Anderson in the photographic lineup was because he had an Afro hairdo.
Rudolph testified that she heard consistent rumors from people in the neighborhood that J-Rock was the person who shot Baker. She said that Anderson was not J-Rock. She said that there was friction between J-Rock and Baker. The prosecution played a recording of Rudolph’s earlier interview with police and noted that she had told police that she also heard that a second person named “Tiny G-Biscuit” [Anderson] was involved in crime. Rudolph testified that she had only brought up Anderson because she knew he had a car similar to the one the newspaper had reported as being involved in the shooting.
She also testified that Baker was a member of the DOM gang. She said that before Baker was murdered, there had been a shooting in their neighborhood. She said that afterward, Baker had moved out. After he left, she said that two members of the Rollin’ 40s showed up looking for him.
Los Angeles police officer Matthew Jacobik testified that at the time of the shooting, members of the DOM and Rollin’ 40s Crips were feuding, and that the shooting was done to benefit the Rollin’ 40s Crips. Jacobik told the jury that he had interviewed Anderson in the past, dating to 1998, and that Anderson had admitted to Jacobik that he was a member of the Rollin’ 40s Crips.
Anderson testified and denied involvement in the crime. He said that he had left the gang in 1999. He said that on the day of the shooting, he went to work. After work, he dropped a co-worker, Garland Brown, off at Brown’s home, and then went home himself where he remained for the rest of the evening.
Brown testified as well, but he could not remember where he was the evening of the shooting or whether Anderson had dropped him off after work.
On March 19, 2003, the jury convicted Anderson of first-degree murder, and also found that a firearm had been used and the crime had been committed for the benefit of a gang. Anderson was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction and sentence in October 2005. The California Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
In 2007, Anderson filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition was denied in February 2010.
In late 2016 or early 2017, Anderson’s wife learned of a possible witness to the shooting named Leonel Lopez. After her efforts to speak to Lopez were unsuccessful, she reached out to Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles. Subsequently, she learned that the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had interviewed Lopez. She was told that Lopez saw the shooting and said that Anderson was not the shooter.
Later, a lawyer from the Loyola Project for the Innocent and an investigator met with the CRU and were told that Lopez had said he saw the man in the front passenger seat, and he was not Anderson. According to the CRU, Lopez said he could not see the face of the driver. The CRU declined to provide a copy of the interview with Lopez and soon after stopped re-investigating Anderson’s case.
Shortly thereafter, attorney Ian Graham took over the case for Anderson. In October 2018, Graham submitted a formal application to the CRU on behalf of Anderson. In January 2019, after the CRU did not respond to Graham’s inquiries about the case, Graham filed a motion for post-conviction discovery seeking a transcript of the interview with Lopez. Two weeks later, Deputy District Attorney Robert Grace and other members of the CRU met with Graham and offered to provide a copy of the interview if Graham would not conduct any further investigation, including not interviewing Lopez, for at least 90 days. Graham agreed.
In May 2019, Grace asked for 45 more days. In July, in response to repeated requests for an update, Grace agreed to a meeting on August 6, 2019. At the meeting, Grace said that the CRU did not believe Anderson was innocent and the CRU would be closing the matter. A report denying Anderson’s claim was issued in January 2020.
In August 2020, Graham filed a state law petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition said that in Lopez’s first interview with the CRU, he said that on the day of the shooting, he agreed to give Baker a ride from near 39 th and Vermont to 42 nd and Broadway in Los Angeles. As they passed a group of men at 41 st and Hoover Streets, Baker said, “I got a beef with these people,” and tried to cover his face with his hands, Lopez said.
Lopez said Baker was worried that he had been recognized. Lopez said he drove several blocks until he stopped at a traffic light on Figueroa Street. A car pulled up behind him. He said the “next thing I know, I have a gun to my head.”
Lopez said that as one man held a gun to his head, two others came to the passenger side of the car and started punching Baker through the open window. He said the men opened the car door and pulled Baker out to the street. Lopez said Baker started to run, but three or four gunshots rang out. Baker fell to the street in front of the car. The two men then returned to the car parked behind him. The man who was holding a gun to Lopez’s head then walked to the front of Baker’s car, fired three or four more shots, and then walked back to get into the driver’s seat. As he passed Lopez, the man said, “Say anything and I’ll kill you.”
Lopez said he leaned over and pulled the passenger door shut and sped off.
Lopez said that he knew Anderson at the time and that the man in the driver’s seat was not Anderson. He was unable to say whether either of the two men on the passenger side was Anderson.
The petition said that prior to Anderson’s trial, Anderson had told his trial defense attorney, Edgar Borne, about Lopez, but Borne never sought out Lopez. Based on Borne’s failure, the petition said that Anderson had received an inadequate legal defense. The petition noted that Borne had been battling alcoholism at the time of the trial and was subsequently disbarred.
Anderson “is an innocent man sentenced to fifty years to life for a crime he did not commit,” the petition said. “Mr. Lopez’s eyewitness account of the crime, excluding [Anderson] as the shooter seen by the prosecution’s witnesses, is credible, corroborated, and would undoubtedly have changed the outcome of his trial.”
In August 2022, a hearing on the petition was ordered. Testimony was taken in March and May 2023. Lopez testified that the man who held a gun to his head and fired several shots into Baker on the street was not Anderson.
Borne testified that Anderson had insisted he was innocent, and that there was a witness, Lopez, who had seen the shooting. Borne acknowledged he had failed to try to find Lopez. He admitted he was abusing alcohol and that was a contributing factor to his eventual disbarment.
On June 13, 2023, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Drew Edwards vacated Anderson’s conviction and ordered a new trial. “Mr. Borne’s decision to not fully investigate the potential witness Leonel Lopez was not reasonable,” the judge ruled. “But for Mr. Borne’s deficient performance, there is a reasonable probability that the Petitioner would have been acquitted of the murder charge in this case.”
The prosecution announced their intention to retry Anderson, so he remained in custody. Nearly a year later, on May 28, 2024, the prosecution refiled the same first-degree murder charge against Anderson.
Graham filed a motion to dismiss the case based on the delay in refiling the charge. On June 17, 2024, following a hearing, Judge Edwards found there was no excuse for the delay. Judge Drew dismissed the case against Anderson and barred the prosecution from refiling the case again.
Anderson was released on June 26, 2024.
In March 2025, Anderson filed a claim for compensation from the California Victim Compensation Board. In April 2025, the board agreed to award him $1,150,380 in compensation.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 10-09-2025
Last Update Date: 10-09-2025
