More than one dozen bullets ripped through a family home on
Summerhill Circle Tuesday; third suspect fled, sought by police
Gilroy – Two teens were handcuffed early Tuesday morning after a drive-by gang shooting that left a northwest Gilroy home riddled with bullets, a minute-long car chase and a fiery crash on Eigleberry Street.
No one in the home was injured.
One suspect was still missing – and the gun – at press time Tuesday.
More than one dozen small-caliber bullets ripped through a family home at 985 Summerhill Circle at 12:16am Tuesday, police reported, puncturing the garage door, shattering an upstairs bedroom window and rattling through two parked cars. Neighbors reported hearing a hailstorm of bullets, then the screeching wheels of a car taking off toward Santa Teresa Boulevard.
“I jumped out of bed,” said Imelda Canales, a Summerhill Circle resident. “At first, I thought I had to be dreaming. But no – it was real.”
Twenty-one minutes later, Officer Bobby Griffith spotted the green 1998 Dodge Stratus, described by witnesses, driving near the intersection of Rosanna and Fourth streets. Its driver, 18-year-old Raymond Orosco, saw Griffith and hit the gas.
The teen tore through a half-mile of residential streets, taking police on a roughly one-minute chase, before rounding the corner of Third and Eigleberry streets where he lost control and crashed sideways into a Volkswagen van owned by Alice Sousa. The Dodge went up in flames.
“The irony of it was, I’d just gotten my car repainted,” said Sousa, an Eigleberry Street resident who walked outside in her robe to find the blazing crash and a swarm of police cruisers. “My kids had all wanted me to throw [the van away].”
Orosco’s two passengers fled, but one returned: A 15-year-old girl tried to free Orosco from the back seat of a police cruiser. She was tackled, arrested and charged with obstructing an officer and “lynching” – the technical term for violently removing someone from police custody.
Orosco was booked into county jail for felony vehicle evasion, driving without a valid license and a probation violation. Currently, he does not face charges for shooting into an inhabited dwelling – a felony that packs a potential seven-year prison sentence – but police say he’s considered a person of interest in the crime.
A third male suspect ran west from the crash, and had not been apprehended as of press time Tuesday. His name is unknown. No weapon was recovered from the two teens arrested, or from the car.
The car was registered to and apparently stolen from the 15-year-old girl’s mother, who said she fell asleep around 9:30pm Monday, leaving her car keys in her purse. Because the car was not reported stolen by the woman, Gilroy police could not confirm the theft.
“Boy, did I fall to my knees,” said the mother. The Dispatch is withholding her name to avoid identifying her daughter, a juvenile suspect. “I feel awful. I’m angry and hurt, and I’m in awe that she’d do something like this. She knows better.”
Police believe the shooter or shooters were specifically targeting the Summerhill Circle home, where a suspected gang member lives with his family, said Cpl. Jim Callahan. Orosco has a history of gang-related contacts with Gilroy police, Callahan said, and is a Norteño affiliate.
The shooting rattled the Summerhill neighborhood, a mixed-income community developed over the past decade by nonprofit South County Housing. Neighborhood Watch signs star Summerhill Circle, a suburban drive lined with trim, stuccoed homes where street parking is strictly prohibited. Gang-related graffiti has turned up on mailboxes, neighbors reported, but never anything like this.
When another neighbor heard the gunfire, she thought it was fireworks: She’d never heard gunshots before, she explained.
“What has this neighborhood come to?” asked one resident active in the neighborhood association, who spoke on condition of anonymity, worried about his safety. Two neighbors have already mentioned moving out, he added. “This is supposed to be the good side of town. I don’t know if there is a good side of town anymore.”
Police echoed the man’s concerns. Gang activity isn’t relegated to Gilroy’s poorest neighborhoods, said Sgt. John Sheedy, and gangs don’t impose income limits.
“Not all gang-related stuff happens on the east side,” added Callahan, invoking the stereotype that Gilroy’s gang activity only occurs east of Monterey Street. “It’s more spread out than we think.”
Managers of the Summerhill neighborhood association are seeking legal counsel as to what action, if any, the association could take if the home’s residents are gang-involved. The home at which shots were fired is owned by Alejandro Magana and Maria Pedroza, according to a city database. No one was home at the residence Tuesday morning, and neither Magana nor Pedroza’s numbers were listed in the most recent Yellow Pages.
“It’s been a very peaceful neighborhood, a beautiful neighborhood,” said David Guzman, a property manager with REMI, the managing agent of Gilroy Summerhill Owners’ Association. “And there was a sense of community and safety around there – until today.”
