2 charged with killing Los Angeles homeless double-amputee

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two people were charged with shooting and killing a homeless double amputee as he slept in a wheelchair in South Los Angeles, authorities said Thursday.

Rubi Anguiano Salazar, 37, and Raymundo Hernandez, 34, were charged with murder for the death of 69-year-old Gerold Lipeles on May 17, authorities said.

Lipeles was sleeping outside of a McDonald’s restaurant when Salazar walked up and shot him in the head, prosecutors alleged. He died five days later at a hospital.

The killing “is disturbingly brutal and callous,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.

Hernandez and another man were arrested Tuesday but the other man hasn’t been charged with a crime pending further investigation, authorities said.

Salazar already was in custody on an unrelated charge, police said.

Salazar also is charged with attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. Prosecutors allege that four days after Lipeles was shot, Salazar shot a 67-year-old woman in the back at a bus stop.

Authorities didn’t release a possible motive for the shootings.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Salazar and Martinez had lawyers who could speak on their behalf.