Hayward gang suspect charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting antifreeze

HAYWARD — Two years after he was sentenced to prison for a shooting charge in a major gang investigation, a Hayward man is back in jail facing charges of attempting to murder a man, court records show.

Jeswal Prakash, 29, allegedly yelled a gang taunt at a man and fired shots at him, striking the victim’s garage, vehicle and a bottle of antifreeze, authorities said. No one was injured in the May 5 shooting.

Police say after shooting up the Hayward home, Prakash drove his Chevrolet Volt to his nearby residence on Lakewood Way. Police canvased the area and arrested him there the same day as the shooting.

Prosecutors charged Prakash with attempted murder, assault with a gun and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Police say they found an expended cartridge inside Prakash’s car but never found the pistol he allegedly used in the shooting. The Chevrolet was impounded.

Prakash remains at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin with bail set at $500,000, court records show. His next court date has been set for May 22.

In 2017, he was one of five reputed gang members charged in a wiretap investigation known as Operation Winter Storm. At the time, Hayward police said they’d thwarted multiple murder plots set in motion by the suspects, all alleged to have been members of the East Las Palmas gang, a South Hayward-based subset of the Norteños.

In 2023, Prakash pleaded no contest to a charge of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and was formally sentenced to a seven-year prison term that he’d already served while in jail awaiting trial. Prosecutors dropped a murder conspiracy count as part of the plea deal, court records show.

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