Calvin Sneed Murdered for Pimping 17-Year-Old: Parents Held on $2 Million Bail
Calvin Sneed, a pimp, was murdered allegedly by two parents, Barry Gilton and Lupe Mercado, for pimping out their 17-year-old daughter, a Compton, Calif. resident.
Calvin Sneed, 22, was known for his gang-related activities, pimping, and was suspected by San Francisco couple Gilton and Mercado of luring their daughter away from home over a year ago. The San Francisco district attorney's office accused the pair of shooting Sneed. He was found gunned down early June 4, allegedly by Gilton's .40-caliber weapon.
"We have substantial evidence to believe that this was a premeditated event," Dist. Atty. George Gascon said Thursday according to The Los Angeles Times. He empathized with "the frustration that the parents must have felt," but acknowledged that "taking the law into your own hands is not an acceptable solution."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Eric Safire, who represents Gilton, charges that the evidence against his client is purely "circumstantial," although he admits the parents had motive. Gilton and Mercado had gone to the authorities several times over the course of the year, and even added their daughter's name to the missing children's registry.
The evidence could be damning, however. Sneed was driving in the Bayview area- where the girl originally lived with her parents- when he was shot in the head and crashed his car into a parked vehicle, according to the SFweekly.com.
"Calvin was a pimp, the girl was a runaway, the parents got mad," Charles Sneed, the slain youth's father, told the San Francisco Gate. "They became God for a moment, they didn't wait for the judge, the trial, they did it right then and there in the street."
A phone call Mercado made to Gilton, who sat in a Mercedes SUV, also weighs heavily on the case. She called him at 1:57 a.m., and only four minutes later, Sneed was shot multiple times.
This isn't the first attempt to kill Sneed, prosecutors charge. On May 27, someone fired a .9-milimeter handgun at the Nutty Block Crip gang member. He was injured by shattered glass.
Safire believes that because Sneed was "doing business in a foreign gang area" that he could have easily been "exposed to violence." The elder Sneed admitted that Calvin had been shot at on more than one occasion as well.
Currently Gilton and Mercado are both being held on $2 million bail apiece. Both face one count of murder, one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied car, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
