A pimp from Los Angeles, Calif., who police identify as Calvin Snead of the LA street gang Nutty Blocc Compton Crips, was shot dead earlier this month and police have accused the parents of a 17-year old girl who was allegedly a runaway teen prostitute of the crime.

They say the girl worked for him as a prostitute and had ran away from home in San Francisco to LA and they accuse her parents of being so desperate to get her away from him and that life of prostitution - they resorted to murder.

Their attorney says that isn't the case at all, contending that the parents desperately wanted their daughter back and even contacted authorities for help, but were unaware of any plot to kill the pimp and blame gang activity for his shooting death.

Sneed reportedly belongs to the LA street gang Nutty Blocc Compton Crips and police say the runaway teen prostitute's parents had contacted them seeking to get her back home and out from under his spell as a 'sex slave.'

The police say when they couldn't help, the parents planned a murder.

"We have substantial evidence to believe that this was a premeditated event," Dist. Atty. George Gascon said, according to the LA Times.

Gascon said that as a father, he understood "the frustration that the parents must have felt.... But taking the law into your own hands is not an acceptable solution."

Circumstantial evidence...

The parents deny any plot.

A lawyer who represents one of the defendants told the paper, "There is some circumstantial evidence, and there's certainly a motive, but there is no direct evidence that we've been made aware of."

One attempt in LA...

Police claim an attempt to kill the gang member and pimp in LA failed, but the parents were successful when the pimp made a trip to Northern California to retrieve his 17-year old prostitute.

LA weekly has more on the first attempt:

On May 27, when the south-end gangster was parked outside 4942 Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood, "somebody approached and shot at him in his vehicle," LAPD Detective Brian Fox tells LA Weekly. Officers questioned him at at the hospital (where his 17-year-old sex slave sat at his bedside, according to the new complaint), but his lips were sealed.

Sneed "wasn't too cooperative in calling us back," says Fox. "With a lot of the gang cases, these gang members don't talk. They feel it's a street thing."

Shot in San Francisco trying to get the girl back...

The Times reports the details police allege on the fateful San Francisco trip:

"The 17-year-old returned with Sneed to the Bay Area on the weekend of June 2 to visit an ailing relative, [attorney Eric Safire] said. She argued with her parents, who tried unsuccessfully to get Sneed to leave.

In the early hours that Monday, Safire said, Sneed was "out doing his business in a foreign gang area. We do know that he was involved in gang activity and that he was up here on his own. It's not unlikely that he would be exposed to violence."

But according to the complaint, Mercado phoned Gilton -- who was in the Mercedes SUV -- at 1:57 a.m. Four minutes later, authorities said, Gilton fired the fatal shots."

Didn't deserve to die...

In an interview with CBS2, the victim's father, Charles Sneed, argues that his young son, though troubled, deserved a chance to turn his life around.

"Call him a pimp. Call him a gang banger. Paint the picture as worse as you want," says the elder Sneed. "The fact of the matter is, he didn't deserve to die. That's the bottom line."

Parents jailed...

According to the report Gilton and Mercado are both being held on $2 million bail apiece.

Both face one count of murder, one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied car, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.

(Image: WENN)