A man, Daniel Saldana, from California, United States, who was wrongly convicted of attempted murder has regained freedom after 33 years in jail.
According to Daiymail, Saldana who is now 55 was wrongly sentenced to prison for trying to murder six high school students in a shooting in 1989.
The 55-year-old man was proclaimed innocent by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday, May 25, 2023.
He was convicted in 1990 of shooting at a car containing six teenagers who were leaving a high school football game in Baldwin Park, east of Los Angeles.
Two students were wounded in the 1989 attack but survived. The attackers mistook the teens for gang members, authorities said.
On Thursday, wearing a gray suit and flanked by family members at the Hall of Justice in Downtown Los Angeles, appearing with District Attorney George Gascón, Saldana said: ‘I never lost hope.’
‘It’s a struggle, every day waking up knowing you’re innocent and here I am locked up in a cell, crying for help,’ Saldana said, according to the Southern California News Group.
‘I’m just so happy this day came,’ he added.
Saldana was 22 at the time of the 1989 shooting and worked full-time as a construction worker. He was one of three men charged with the attack.
Saldana was convicted of six counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle and sentenced to 45 years to life in state prison.
Gascón’s office began investigating after learning in February that another convicted attacker told authorities during a 2017 parole hearing that Saldana ‘was not involved in the shooting in any way and he was not present during the incident,’ the DA said.