A Bel-Air shootout: Fitness influencer gunned down after confrontation with robbers
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Set us as preferred After a late lunch with his wife in West Hollywood, Miguel Angel Aguilar got in his white convertible 1959 Chevrolet Impala and headed home to Bel-Air.He didn’t notice the gray Acura sedan that tailed him through rush-hour traffic on Sunset Boulevard.In the Acura were four young men who’d driven from Oakland to Los Angeles in September 2024 for the “express purpose” of robbing people, a prosecutor said in court Tuesday.
They had allegedly robbed a man of his diamond bracelet and necklace the day before they spotted Aguilar dining at Bossa Nova, a Brazilian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard.Aguilar, 43, had amassed a sizable following as an influencer on Instagram and YouTube, where he spoke of overcoming poverty and addiction before creating a chain of gyms called Self Made Training Facility.
In the back of his Impala, he put up a sign that read “SLF MDE.” At a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Los Angeles Police Department detectives displayed photographs of the Impala sitting in traffic around 4 p.m.on Sept.
13, 2024.“If I may say so, it was cherried out,” Det.
Charles Moreno testified of Aguilar’s car.“It had custom paint.
It was in great condition.If I was a car collector, I’d want that car.” Aguilar drove toward his home on Thurston Circle, where a neighbor’s camera showed the Impala cruise down the quiet residential street, music blaring.
Just behind it was the gray Acura with tinted windows.A few seconds elapsed after the cars passed out of frame.
Then muffled shouting could be heard, followed by two shots in quick succession.LAPD Det.
Frank Flores testified he interviewed Aguilar’s wife, who said when her husband stopped the Impala outside the garage, she saw four or five masked, armed men coming up the driveway.They demanded Aguilar and his wife hand over their watche...