About 100 friends and family members mourned the death of
Francisco Rodriguez Lopez this afternoon at St. Mary’s Church.
GILROY
About 100 friends and family members mourned the death of Francisco Rodriguez Lopez this afternoon at St. Mary’s Church.
The 19-year-old was shot and killed near the intersection of Farrell Avenue and Monterey Road last Monday in a gang-related incident, according to police. With such violent activity on the rise, officers attended the funeral to make sure everything remained peaceful, and it did. In fact, violence seemed impossible Monday afternoon.
A handful of people wore black T-shirts with a picture of Lopez smiling on the back above the words “Junior Francisco” and “R.I.P.” Toward the end of the hour-long service, a throng surrounded Lopez’s casket. Women wailed while stern-faced young men stared at their fallen friend. Somber faces trickled out into the parking lot to console one another and reflect while police officers quietly patrolled the property.
“We just want to make sure we’re ready for whatever happens,” Sgt. Jim Gillio said before the funeral.
St. Mary School Principal Christa Hanson also took precautions by dismissing classes early Monday, letting children out at 12:30 p.m. instead of 3 p.m., which is when the funeral began. There were also parking concerns to worry about, with parents coming to pick up children and mourners arriving to honor Lopez’s life, she said.
“Because of the sensitive issue of this funeral, we decided to dismiss classes early today,” Hanson said before the services began in the church next to the school. It was only the second time in Hanson’s 19 year career there that the school decided to change its regular schedule because of safety concerns related to a funeral; officials kept students inside during recess one time 19 years ago during another funeral stemming from gang violence, she said.
Police have yet to make any arrests in connection with Lopez’s murder, but a juvenile was arrested Friday morning for trespassing at Ascension Solorsano Middle School. Wearing blue shorts and a blue belt, he told officers he was a Sureño gang member looking for a Norteño to assault in retaliation for a recent gang-related homicide, according to a police report.
But police are still trying to determine whether Lopez’s attackers belonged to a rival street gang or whether infighting caused his death. While gangs used to hold clearly marked territories in Gilroy due to the concentration of low-income housing in a few parts of town, 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 – where someone in a car carrying an unknown number of suspects fired a pistol into the vehicle Lopez was traveling in just before 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29 – that it was a red-clad Norteño clique defending their territory against blue-clad intruders from the south.
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.
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’s 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. The charge was dropped two months later, though, and Romero now faces 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.
