GILROY
– The city police department’s gang-specialist unit is
investigating two shootings between cars Sunday, both believed to
be gang-related.
GILROY – The city police department’s gang-specialist unit is investigating two shootings between cars Sunday, both believed to be gang-related.
Twenty-two minutes after the second of the two shootings, officials at Saint Louise Regional Hospital called police to say they had a 26-year-old Gilroy man with a minor bullet wound in his arm. Police questioned the man and determined his tale of how he got his wound was false, but they did not arrest him. Police declined to comment on their investigation in progress.
In addition to this man, police questioned at least four possible suspects in the first shooting, which sent bullets into two inhabited houses on Church Street early Sunday afternoon. Police have made no arrests in either case.
No residents were injured in the Church Street crossfire. At 1:45 p.m., police received word that shots had been fired into a house at 7830 Church St. Upon arrival, they discovered that another house, at 7810 Church St., had also been hit. Witnesses said they heard three to four shots fired. One bullet passed through a front window of one house; another lodged in its front wall.
Before police could arrive at the scene, however, another citizen called to report seeing a man with a gun at Wayland Lane and Arnold Drive. The Church Street caller had mentioned that a tan Oldsmobile Cutlass sedan might have been involved; the Wayland Lane caller also mentioned a tan Cutlass as well as a black Ford Taurus sedan. Police immediately diverted to that location but found neither the cars nor the man with a gun.
Back at Church Street, a witness told police the black Taurus was seen on the 8100 block of Church Street. Police found the car parked there, with no occupants, and towed it on suspicion of its being involved in a felony.
Police said they are convinced the shooters did not target the houses they hit. People in two cars appeared to be shooting at each other, police said; the shooters just happened to be at that location at the time.
The fact that the shooting came from vehicles is one indicator of its being gang-related, police said.
Later that day, at 5:06 p.m., police got a call reporting a shooting between two vehicles on southbound U.S. 101. The vehicles – one black and one white – were passing the Monterey Street exit and heading toward state Highway 25, the caller said.
Police responded to the U.S. 101 but never located the vehicles.
Then, at 5:28 p.m., an official from Saint Louise Regional hospital called to inform police about the gunshot patient. The patient told police he had been standing in the parking lot of Platinum Theatres, 6851 Monterey St., when he was hit by a shot from a passing car, unknown to him. He said he was walking down Monterey Street when two citizens – also unknown to him – stopped their vehicle and gave him a ride to the hospital.
According to police, this man contradicted his story upon further questioning by the police department’s Anti-Crime Team, a gang-specific force which was investigating the shootings. Police declined to elaborate on the man’s statement other than to say they determined the man was lying. Although giving a false statement to police is a misdemeanor offense, police did not arrest him at that time.
