A Houston man who drove past a group of people gathered in front of a home in 2018, allowing a gunman in the car to fatally shoot a 19-year-old, was sentenced to 30 years in prison this week, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.

Angelo Alexander Perez, 23, was found guilty of murder by a Harris County jury and sentenced to 30 years in prison late Thursday after seven days of trial.

“Planning and carrying out a drive-by shooting is premeditated gun violence that often ends, like this, in a devastating loss of life,” Ogg said. “Using a gun to settle a score is never acceptable.”

Perez was driving his brother’s girlfriend’s white Chrysler 300 sedan just after midnight on May 7, 2018. Perez, and another man who has yet to identified, had planned to fight a group of young men they knew from their area around Acres Homes.

After the planned fight did not happen, 19-year-old Joseph Juarez and several other people were in the driveway of a home in the 2000 block of Barnsley, north of Acres Homes.

Perez drove the sedan through the neighborhood several times and, during the last pass, the triggerman fired over the roof of the Chrysler from the passenger side, striking and killing Juarez. Perez then fled, driving the vehicle.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit investigated and arrested Perez. Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the unit at 713-274-9100 or Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477.

Assistant District Attorney Sean Kozar-King prosecuted Perez with ADA Garrett Moore.

“Through the evidence presented a trial, we were able to show that the white Chrysler was the car used in the shooting, that the defendant was driving that car and that he was an active participant in the drive-by,” Kozar-King said. “It was important to get justice for this victim and his family.”