May 20, 2008 5:59 pm US/Pacific
Man Charged In Church Carnival Shooting
LOS ANGELES
A North Hollywood man who allegedly shot his ex- girlfriend and two other people at a Granada Hills church carnival was charged on Tuesday with three counts of attempted murder.
Fernando Diaz Jr., 33, is accused of using a semiautomatic .22-caliber rifle to fire into the carnival just before 11 a.m. Saturday at St. John Baptist de la Salle Catholic Church.
Witnesses told police that Diaz kissed his son, who was at the carnival, then took a rifle out of a tennis bag and opened fire. The ex-girlfriend, who
is 30 years old, was shot in an arm. A 45-year-old man was shot in the chest, and a 47-year-old man was grazed in a leg.
An off-duty police officer and two other men at the carnival subdued Diaz and held him for police, officials said.
Arraignment was postponed to Friday in San Fernando Superior Court for Diaz, who was jailed on $7.2 million bail.
In addition to the attempted murder counts, Diaz is also charged with two counts of assault with a firearm and a felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Meanwhile, county Supervisor Michael Antonovich asked the county's chief probation officer today to investigate how Diaz, a parolee who was convicted of a gun-related crime, obtained a weapon allegedly used in the shooting.
After white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr., a parolee from Washington state, killed a mail carrier and opened fire at a Jewish daycare center in Granada Hills on Aug. 10, 1999, Antonovich pushed for the creation of the
DISARM program to ensure that Los Angeles County felons on probation are monitored to prevent them from acquiring weapons.
Since Diaz was a state parolee, he was not subject to the DISARM program, which pairs deputy probation officers with local law enforcement to do unannounced searches at the homes of probationers, according to Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell.
Since its implementation, the DISARM program has led to the seizure of roughly 4,000 weapons and more than $289 million in illegal drugs and drug money, and has resulted in more than 9,000 arrests, according to Antonovich's office.
"This is the kind of guy that DISARM would be perfect for," Bell said, adding that Antonovich would like to see the program adopted statewide.
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