SANTA ANA, Calif.—A 42-year-old man was sentenced June 16 to 410 years to life in prison for opening fire on a pickup full of six men in a road-rage dispute in Costa Mesa on Thanksgiving Day that killed one and wounded four.
Lee Queuon Walker was convicted May 9 of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder. Jurors took about two hours to also find true sentencing enhancements for discharge of a gun causing death or great bodily injury.
Walker was convicted of fatally shooting 30-year-old Lucas Rivera-Velasco of Costa Mesa on Nov. 24, 2022, at 423 W. Bay St. Also wounded in the shooting were Salvador Pulido-Nieto, Bernardo Millan-Pulido, Hugo Medina-Rivera, and Gilberto Mediina-Rivera, while Jaime Nieto-Millan escaped injury.
Walker tearfully asked Rivera-Velasco’s family to “forgive me.”
He added, “I took a life. It wasn’t my intention that night,” Walker said. “My intention was going to McDonald’s to get my kid food. I do feel bad someone lost their life. It wasn’t my intention and I have to live with this every day. I wish I could turn back the hands of time, but I can’t.”
Walker said he was trying to “exchange information” with the driver of the pickup truck that knocked the defendant’s side-view mirror out of place before clicking back in the incident that touched off the shooting.
“They ran into my truck and then that guy came at me saying, ‘What the [expletive],’” Walker said. “Everything happened so fast and I started shooting. I can’t bring their son back, but I wish you could all forgive me for my actions that night. I was trying to protect my son.”
Walker said at the time, “My life was going in a good direction ... I worked hard to get where I was at. It took 10 years and it was taken away in two minutes.”
Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Hanson told Walker she “appreciated” his statement before sentencing because it was “the first time I’ve seen you express any remorse for your actions.”
But Hanson said she disagreed with Walker’s version of events. She noted how the defendant’s mother said her son had a “pure heart,” and added, “I believe you had that in you, but on this night you acted very differently. ... You had that firearm and you were prepared to use it.”
Hanson noted that she was concerned that such a “trivial” incident could touch off an explosion of temper that led to gunfire.
“You were not protecting your family,” Hanson said. “You were made and went after the individual who did you wrong ... When you say you worked so hard those 10 years, I believe you. But where I disagree is it was taken away from you. You’re here because of your actions.”
Walker’s prior criminal history made him a third striker, which compounded his punishment.
The victims worked as gardeners and landscapers and spent a rare day off on the holiday watching soccer, drinking, and dining at Costa Brava restaurant in Costa Mesa, Senior Deputy District Attorney Dan Feldman said at trial.
“The unarmed friends and family members struck his mirror and startled him so what was his first choice? He grabbed a gun,” Feldman said. “Mr. Walker made the choice to get out of his car ... and confront them.”
Walker and his girlfriend, Denise Segura, were searching for an open McDonald’s on the holiday because their 4-year-old son craved chicken nuggets, Feldman said. After their third failed try, they crossed paths with Rivera-Velasco and the others when the 2003 Chevrolet Silverado they were in clipped Walker’s 2021 Chevrolet Silverado and the side-view mirror snapped out of place before popping back into place, Feldman said.
Walker followed the other vehicle and when it was in a left turn lane on 19th Street to go north on Harbor Boulevard the defendant jumped out of his pickup truck and dashed over to them and “pounded on the window,” according to Feldman.
Walker testified that he saw two guns in the pickup truck and the six men.
Segura took a picture of the pickup truck as she implored the defendant to stop following the group, Feldman said. After the shooting, “Mr. Walker told [Segura] to delete that photo,” which indicates consciousness of guilt, Feldman said.
Walker’s attorney, Randall Bethune of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, acknowledged that his client could have stopped following the pickup truck, “But that is not the legal standard. That does not address the issue of whether he was justified.”
Walker was the victim of a crime when the other truck hit his vehicle and he had a right to pursue someone leaving the scene of an accident, Bethune argued.
“He didn’t know it was minor damage,” Bethune said. “He told them you hit my car. They chose to ignore him. They look at him and keep going. From his perspective, the right thing to do is to talk about this ... Objectively, they are not following the law.”
Bethune also said the driver, Gilberto Medina-Rivera, was driving drunk.
The group was dropping off Nieto-Millan, who lived where the pickup truck stopped, but that wasn’t all they were doing, Bethune argued. Also, the defendant did not know Nieto-Millan lived at that address or why they were pulling over, Bethune said.
Millan-Pulido said in his victim impact statement that when they heard the gunfire, “We were scared and we did not know what was happening. The attacker went to the truck and started shooting everyone that was inside the truck.”
He said he was hospitalized for a month and needed four months to recuperate.
Pulido Nieto said he couldn’t work for several months and struggled to provide for his family. He said he still has numbness in his fingers and continues to “live with the trauma, havoc, and fear of the incident every day.”
Gilbert Medina Rivera, the driver, said he had to return to work even though he did not feel well and eventually lost the pickup truck he was driving that night.
Rivera-Velasco’s sister said her brother’s “passion was playing soccer every Sunday and he would leave everything he was doing to go do something he liked. ... He was a unique person. Seeing him laugh and shout on the field and now it is pure sadness.”
His parents “cry for their son” every day, she said.
“My mom is not the same person and she lives with great sadness,” she said. “She has a big wound and cannot accept this. We don’t have words to console her since that day.”
