Probation ordered for teen who committed fatal North Las Vegas shooting

A judge ordered probation Tuesday for a teen who fatally shot another teen as payback for a robbery.

“This case is tragic, hard,” said District Judge Carli Kierny. “It’s two young boys who were on a collision course. They were both so good and beloved by their families, to hear it from each side, but then ultimately did terrible things to each other.”

Gabriel Ayala, 17, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter by jurors in August. He killed 16-year-old Eddwin Ramos-Figueroa in a shooting on the 2600 block of Donna Street in North Las Vegas.

A judge ruled Ayala would be tried as an adult in 2023, the year of the slaying.

Kierny ordered a suspended sentence of four to 20 years for Ayala.

She said he had done well while on house arrest during the case. His actions over the past years and the jury’s verdict prompted her decision to give him probation, she said.

The judge ordered Ayala to do 100 hours of community service, graduate high school or obtain a GED and then enroll in college or a job training program. He also must not contact the victim’s family or possess guns.

“You have one chance,” she told him. “Show me I’m not making the wrong decision.”

Ayala is the half-brother of Jesus Ayala, who struck and killed a retired police chief with a vehicle, he and defense attorney Matthew Stromenger said after court. Stromenger said the two brothers have not had much contact in recent years.

The defense attorney said the sentence was fair.

“I respect the judge’s decision,” prosecutor Michael Allmon said. “It was a complicated case.”

Allmon had requested a prison sentence of four to 20 years, referring to the crime as an “execution-style murder.”

The victim made mistakes, he said, but he did not deserve death. Previously, he said Ramos-Figueroa was one of several people who robbed Gabriel Ayala.

Ramos-Figueroa was part of a group that savagely beat Ayala with a gun, Kierny noted. She indicated that the defendant’s actions appeared to stem from fear but culminated in an “element of overkill.”

“On cross-examination, I asked the defendant, ‘Did you kill him before or after he begged for his life?’ and his answer was after,” the prosecutor told the judge.

Silvia Figueroa, the mother of the teen killed, spoke tearfully through an interpreter about the pain of losing her son and asked for the harshest possible sentence.

“He has totally devastated our lives,” she said of Ayala. She described her son as a good person and told the judge she no longer feels safe.

Stromenger indicated that his client was trying to go to school the day of the shooting. Ayala is a “good kid” and has said he thought “what he was doing was what he kind of believed he needed to do,” the lawyer said.

Ayala said he was sorry for his actions.

“I have my whole life ahead of me and this is just one mistake that I made,” he told the judge before she announced his sentence.

Kierny did not seem satisfied with the initial statement.

“It’s not just a mistake,” she said. “You took a young boy’s life. … I think you might be letting yourself off a little easy here. How do you feel about your role in this situation?”

Stromenger said Ayala did not understand the question.

Ayala then said that what he did was wrong and that he accepts accountability. He said he plans to start a business and pursue a GED but was expelled from school because of the case.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.