Four reputed gang members pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Thursday in the slaying of a 7-year-old Pop Warner football player, killed as he sat in his mother's car.
Tradel Billy Faniel, 28; Paul Eugene Jamar Jr., 19; Danielle Tonano Peters, 31; and Windel Roman Faniel, 26, are charged with murder -- along with gang and gun allegations -- in the Dec. 2 shooting of Taalib Pecantte.
They were arrested by an FBI and LAPD task force Feb. 20.
After the arrest, Taalib's father, Abu Taalib Hussain, thanked the police and said he hoped justice would be served.
Taalib's mother has formed an organization with other mothers whose children have been killed.
SAVE, which stands for Senseless Act of Violence Effect is planning a walk on March 15, which would have been Taalib's 8th birthday.
Taalib was shot Dec. 2 in the 1900 block of Corning Street in Mid-City.
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The boy's mother and her friend, a 31-year-old man, were also struck.
The mother was grazed in the leg by a bullet and her friend was shot in the back, but survived.
At the time, police said the assailants got out of a white four-door car, walked up to the mother's car and fired about 20 rounds.
"They knew my baby was in the car -- all the lights were on," the boy's mother, Sawan Berlin Mock, said at the time. "I can't believe that someone would do that to my baby.
"You cannot think it was OK. You should turn yourself in because that was not OK."
