A California man who was incarcerated for 33 years for attempted murder was recently exonerated and released when it was discovered that he had not been there at the time of the crime. In 1990, Daniel Saldana, who is now 55 years old, was found guilty of shooting at a car as its occupants left a high school football game in Baldwin Park, east of Los Angeles. There were a total of six adolescents there, and two of them were injured but managed to escape. Authorities believe the assailants first mistaken the kids for members of a rival gang.
Saldana, a full-time construction worker who was 22 years old at the time of the shooting, is one of three males who have been arrested in connection with the incident. Saldana was sentenced to 45 years to life in state prison after being found guilty of six charges of attempted murder and one count of firing at an inhabited car. On Thursday, District Attorney George Gascón and Saldana held a press conference to announce Saldana’s acquittal. He expressed his appreciation for being set free. For Saldana, “it’s a struggle, every day waking up knowing you’re innocent and here I am locked up in a cell, crying for help,” as reported by the Southern California News Group. “I’m just so happy this day came,” he continued. After learning in a parole hearing in 2017 that Saldana “was not involved in the shooting in any way and he was not present during the incident,” Gascón said, the district attorney’s office began investigating the case in February. He noted that a former deputy district attorney was present at the hearing “but apparently did nothing” and did not provide the exonerating material to Saldana or his counsel.
According to Gascón, Saldana was wrongfully convicted and spent an extra six years in jail until the district attorney’s office reviewed the evidence and found him not guilty. The DA apologized to Saldana and his family but did not provide any other information about the case. “I know that this won’t bring back the decades you endured in prison,” he continued. But I do pray that our apologies may provide you with some measure of solace as you embark on your new life. Gascón elaborated, “Not only is this a tragedy to force people into prison for a crime they did not commit, but every time that an injustice of this magnitude takes place, the real people responsible are still out there to commit other crimes.”
