Man wrongfully convicted of Baldwin Park shooting cleared after 33 years behind bars

A 55-year-old man who spent the last three decades behind bars was proclaimed innocent by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón on Thursday after evidence found he was wrongfully convicted in a 1989 shooting in Baldwin Park. 

Daniel Saldana was convicted back in 1990 for a shooting that occurred on October 27, 1989, when six high school students were targeted in a shooting while driving after a football game in the area. During that trial, prosecutors claimed that the suspects mistook the group of students for gang members and opened fire. Two were injured. 

Saldana, 22 at the time of the conviction, was charged along with two others in the trial with six counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle. 

He was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison. 

During a press conference on Thursday, Gascón said that one of the other defendants in the case disclosed that Saldana was not involved in the shooting and was not even present at the time during a parole hearing back in 2017.

Despite this, the information was not presented to the District Attorney's office until February of this year, leading to an investigation that found Saldana innocent. 

"I just knew that one day this was going to come," Saldana said at Thursday's press conference. "I'm so grateful. I just thank God."

Though disappointed that the information took so long to reach his office, Gascón stressed the importance that justice was eventually served. 

"As prosecutors, our duty is not simply to secure convictions but to seek justice," he said in a statement. "When someone is wrongfully convicted, it is a failure of our justice system and it is our responsibility to right that wrong. We owe it to the individual who was wrongfully convicted and to the public that justice is served."