Who is David Garcia? How California 'swim team' boy, 19, turned into a 'ruthless killer' for Vineland Boyz gang
On November 15, 2003, the regular town of Burbank, California, was met with a shocking bloodbath. Two officers were shot after following up on a suspicious vehicle's activity -- one of them was presumed dead, the other was critically injured. The two were investigating a tinted SUV that they had spotted without its license plate. The shooting began when they asked the driver to step out of the vehicle.
In the subsequent shootout, the driver died too. But the person seated on the passenger side, who had also killed one of the officers, managed to run away from the scene. The man was soon identified as David Garcia. The manhunt for him drove police to uncover one of the most sinister and intertwined webs of drug cartels and violence that is being explored for the first time ever, on Discover+'s 'American Cartel'.
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Who is David Garcia?
The officer who died was Matthew Pavelka, a young cop who had been in service for just nine months. So Burbank PD sought the help of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to unite on a phenomenal level and bring his killer to justice. This killer was Garcia, a 19-year-old gang member of the Vineland Boyz, linked to the murder through the dead body of his accomplice, Ramon Aranda.
Both Aranda and Garcia had been arrested before and thus had their prints logged into the system. Identifying Aranda was an easy task as his body was discovered with tattoos of his last name all over his skin. A little bit of digging in soon revealed that Ramanda would go on his drug sales and pursuits, driving in the same vehicle each time, with his trusted partner, Garcia.
Garcia shot Pavelka's dead body a few times
In the documentary 'American Cartel', retired FBI Special Agent Bruce Applin calls Garcia a 'swim team member' of his school, who had turned into a 'ruthless killer' when approached by the cops. An ex “Mexican Mafia” gang member who appears in silhouette and disguised as 'Mundo' talks about how being a gang member meant all about 'unleashing' the injustices tolerated all their life as the gang would give them an 'identity, make them someone 'to be reckoned with'. Mundo discloses this in an attempt to explain why Garcia became violent.
The other cop in action on that night, Greg Campbell, reveals how Garcia had already fatally shot Pavelka before he fired at the body a few more times. Campbell was already down in a pool of his blood when Garcia killed Pavelka. He recalls how Garcia turned to shoot at his body too but saw him laying in the 'pool of blood' and assumed he was dead.
Who are the Vineland Boyz?
Both Aranda and Garcia were members of the Vineland Boyz, who identified themselves as the reigning kings of area and borrowed their name from the famous Vineland Street in Hollywood. Garcia killing Pavelka, and the police's bust of the vehicle they were driving, and the house he was subsequently hiding in, both revealed numerous stashes of methamphetamine.
That Pavelka was fired at with a handgun, and the vehicle was deserted with an automatic machine gun revealed that this gang was way more dangerous, armed, and suave than the police had ever expected them to be. Garcia's disappearance was shocking too, with the killer vanishing at the US-Mexico border overnight. But this led the police to unravel the network and the web of drugs, money, and violence crisscrossing the border between the US and the most sinister drug cartels of Mexico.
Garcia's arrest and sentencing
The manhunt for Garcia was swift but still lasted a whole two weeks. The killer was arrested on November 27, 2003, in his Tijuana home in Mexico, and was slammed with charges of first-degree murder, among others, immediately. He pleaded guilty to the murder charges a decade later, on July 24, 2012, and was immediately sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole.
Along with first-degree murder, Garcia also pleaded guilty to one count of transportation of methamphetamine, two counts each of possession of a machine gun and possession of an assault weapon, and one count of possession of a silencer, according to Burbank police. He had also admitted to two special circumstance allegations: that the murder victim was an on-duty peace officer, and that the murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding arrest.
At the time of his arrest, Garcia had alleged officer misconduct, which complicated the trial so much that the case dragged on in court, heard more than 50 times. Soon as the prosecutors had decided on the death penalty, it was revealed that the FBI and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was investigating the alleged officer misconduct for excessive use of force.
'Operation Silent Night'
Garcia had already been arrested when federal authorities launched a mission to take down members of the violent gang; it was titled 'Operation Silent Night'. With 1,300 federal and local law enforcement members participating in the operation, 23 gang members were arrested.
'American Cartel' is a three-part docuseries that begins streaming on Tuesday, March 30 only on discovery+.