Man gets over 130 years in prison for Sacramento drive-by shooting that killed 1, injured 3
A Sacramento Superior Court judge sentenced a 25-year-old man to more than 130 years in prison for a 2020 drive-by shooting that targeted four rival gang members including a man who was killed, prosecutors said.
On Friday, Judge Laurel White sentenced Christopher Manuel Berger to 133 years and four months to life in prison for the late-night shooting three years ago that killed 27-year-old Alex Cardona, of Citrus Heights, and wounded three other men.
A jury on Aug. 2 found Berger guilty of first-degree murder and three counts of discharging a firearm from a vehicle, according to a news release from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. His charges included enhancements for firing a gun, causing great bodily injury or death.
The deadly shooting was reported about 1 a.m. Aug. 24, 2020, on Helena Avenue in Sacramento’s South Hagginwood neighborhood. Officers arrived and found the four shooting victims, including the man later identified as Cardona who was unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Sacramento Police Department.
Berger and the four shooting victims were rival gang members, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Cardona and three other men were outside in front a home in the 1200 block of Helena Avenue, just south of Del Paso Boulevard.
Prosecutors said Berger drove up to the home in his vehicle and fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun 11 times at the men before leaving the area.
Cardona was shot in the head, killing him. The three other wounded men were shot multiple times. They were taken to hospitals and survived the shooting, authorities said.
Berger then reported his vehicle stolen, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Three days after the drive-by shooting, authorities found Berger’s vehicle driven by someone else, who said he got the car from another person — who turned out to be Berger’s friend — and that he threw a shell casing out of the car into a dumpster, prosecutors said. Investigators later found the shell casing and matched it to the murder scene.
Later that day, Sacramento police arrested Berger in connection with the fatal shooting. Prosecutors said authorities found an unregistered gun, which matched the shell casings at the murder scene, during a vehicle stop eight months after the drive-by shooting.
On Monday evening, Berger remained in custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail awaiting transfer to a prison.
This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 6:28 PM.
