Police remain tightlipped about the gang-related murder of
Francisco Rodriguez Lopez, a 19-year-old who was shot and killed
Monday afternoon while driving around north Gilroy.
Police remain tightlipped about the gang-related murder of Francisco Rodriguez Lopez, a 19-year-old who was shot and killed Monday afternoon while driving around north Gilroy.
Someone in a separate car – carrying an unknown number of suspects – fired a pistol into the vehicle Lopez was traveling in just before 3 p.m. Monday, near the intersection of Monterey Road and Farrell Avenue. Lopez was hit before the unknown driver of the car he was in took him to a nearby hospital. He died shortly thereafter.
Police have not released descriptions of either car but impounded the vehicle that took Lopez to the emergency room, according to a preliminary police report and inquiries made at the Gilroy Police Department Station the next day by a blue-clad adult male looking for his car that had been impounded.
Detectives and the police department’s Anti-Crime Team have been working 15-hour days trying to uncover the hazy details of the case and are still trying to determine whether Lopez’s attackers belonged to a rival street gang or whether infighting caused his death, police said. Gangs used to hold clearly marked territories in Gilroy due to the concentration of low-income housing in a few parts of town, but the proliferation of such housing throughout the city in recent years has spread gangs apart and blurred once-demarcated territories, Sgt. Jim Gillio said. This makes it difficult to say that just because something occurred in north Gilroy, it was a red-clad Norteño clique defending their territory against blue-clad intruders from the south.
When it comes to gang-related incidents, law enforcement officials can also face a lack of cooperation from potential witnesses who fear working with police could lead to reprisal attacks, or they simply do not want to help police. Still, when a murder happens, Gilroy police are ready, Sgt. Gillio said.
“We’re ready for it to happen, and when it happens, we’ll take care of what we have to do with the resources we have,” Sgt. Gillio said in reference to budget cuts and a hiring freeze that have hampered the department’s growth. Councilman Perry Woodward has pointed to the inverse relation between the economy and crime, a relation that taxes police officers who have less resources to combat an increasing problem.
That’s something Councilman Dion Bracco has brought up repeatedly during recent council meetings, as well as outside of City Hall. Dealing with what he has called Gilroy’s “sky-rocketing” gang problem will require the city council to reconsider the relative importance of other issues such as sidewalk repair that pale in comparison to the life-and-death problem of gang violence.
This problem also concerns the school district. Antonio Del Buono Elementary School, 9300 Wren Avenue, sits just a block west from the murder scene, and dozens of children and their guardians walk home at the time the shooting took place, but no parents have called the school with questions or concerns, Principal Velia Codiga said. She added that the school district was looking at the possibility of implementing further safety measures at the school.
Hours after the murder Monday, several residents reported seeing police cars cordoning off the section of Farrell Avenue between Severance and Monterey streets, but they said they did not hear or see anything at the time of the shooting, further muddying the circumstances of the violent attack. There were several loud lawnmowers and leaf blowers running in the area throughout Monday afternoon, though, and trucks chugging and horns honking along Monterey Street added to the white noise.
But a gun shot’s loud, and residents along Farrell Avenue repeatedly cocked their heads after hearing that a shooting occurred less than a football field away from their homes.
“I can’t believe I didn’t hear anything,” said Bernie Keeling, a five-year Farrell Avenue resident said. “You’d expect everyone to know what happened, but people kind of keep to themselves around here.”
The death of the 19-year-old is the second murder of 2008. Osiris Quintero Munoz stands accused of murder in the stabbing death of 26-year-old Juan DeDios Arvizu Cabrera, who died outside the Rio Nilo bar and nightclub in downtown the morning of March 16. Munoz has yet to plead in the case as the crime lab analyzes evidence.
Less than a year before that murder, early in the morning of April 29, 2007, 56-year-old Juan Lugo was found in an alley behind La Colonia Latina, located on Monterey Street between Eighth and Old Gilroy streets. Lugo’ body was riddled with stab wounds.
In mid-May, police arrested 21-year-old Tomas Martinez Romero and turned him over to the district attorney, who charged him with murder. However, the charge was dropped two months later. Romero is now being charged with two counts of attempted murder and other charges in an unrelated, non-fatal shooting.
Anyone with information regarding any of these cases may contact Gilroy Police Department Detective Stan Devlin at 846-0335. Those wishing to remain anonymous may call and leave information at 846-0330.
