Crime & Safety
Man Sentenced For Fatally Shooting Homeless Man In San Diego County
The gunman and the victim walked past each other on the street when one man turned and repeatedly fired into the other man's back.
SAN DIEGO, CA — A man who fatally shot a homeless man in City Heights was sentenced Friday to 10 years in state prison.
Antwan Quiroz, 24, was found guilty of shooting 35-year-old Abdirisaq Ahmed five times in the back just after 12:30 a.m. on April 21, 2022.
In sentencing papers, prosecutors wrote that the men walked past each other on 50th Street, near University Avenue, after which Quiroz pulled out a gun, shot the victim and fled.
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Surveillance footage of the shooting was disseminated among law enforcement and an officer familiar with Quiroz recognized him, prosecutors alleged.
Quiroz was arrested the following day.
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His home, which was a block away from the crime scene, was searched, and investigators found the gun used in the killing and clothing matching the shooter, according to prosecutors.
Quiroz's defense attorney, Patricia Taitano-Valdovinos, wrote in her sentencing brief that as the men passed one another on the street, Ahmed tried to grab Quiroz's chain. When that happened, Quiroz mistakenly believed Ahmed was armed with a weapon, the attorney wrote.
Believing Ahmed was turning around to attack him, Quiroz "responded to what he genuinely believed was imminent danger of death or great bodily injury," the defense's papers state.
A San Diego jury acquitted Quiroz of murder, but convicted him of voluntary manslaughter earlier this year.
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