Fatal Shooting on Story and Capital during Rush Hour

San Jose police said detectives were "actively working" to uncover details about what led to the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old man near Story Road and East Capitol Expressway during rush-hour on Friday night.

Police have a 17-year-old suspect in custody in connection with the killing, which is the city's seventh this year. There was only one homicide in January 2010. Police said the killing Friday was gang-related. 

San Jose police Officer Jose Garcia said authorities received a call just before 5 p.m. Friday and arrived to find Hugo Gutierrez, 18, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Garcia said in a statement that Gutierrez, a San Jose resident, was riding his bicycle on Story Road between Galahad Avenue and East Capitol Expressway when at least two people approached him. One opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun, hitting Gutierrez several times. He collapsed to the ground near the El Pollo Rico restaurant at 2687 Story Road.

Police responding to the call took a 17-year-old San Jose boy into custody. Police would not release his name because he is a juvenile.

A 58-year-old Central Valley man who was at a service station at the intersection of Story and Capitol Expressway on Friday evening with a friend and his broken down pickup told the Mercury News on Saturday that he heard the gunfire. He said he saw a young man in a black and gray jacket or sweatshirt fire several shots near the El Pollo Rico restaurant before riding away on a bike.

"Just nonchalant, just rode eastbound up Story like nothing was going on," he said. The man was able to flag one of the police cars arriving at the scene, and pointed the officer in the direction the shooter had gone. "We just couldn't believe it, we were kind of in shock," he said.

The killing of Gutierrez was the second fatal shooting in less than a week in the Story Road area, but police have not said whether the two were connected.

On Monday, a suspected gang-related drive-by shooting left a 20-year-old man dead in front of a shopping center at 2003 Story Road.

City officials assured the public on Tuesday that the string of shootings appears to be an aberration but said they would step up gang-suppression efforts.

Mayor Chuck Reed said the homicide spike underscores the city's need to minimize cuts to the police department's already shrinking 1,250-officer force. The shootings are in sharp contrast to the homicide rate the city recorded last year, the lowest in a decade.

However, officials were careful to say last week that the homicides were spread throughout the city and that three were part of the same case.

Garcia said anyone with information about Friday night's shooting should contact Detective Sergeants Merlin Newton or Rafael Nieves of the San Jose Police Department's homicide unit at 408-277-5283. Anyone who wants to make an anonymous tip may call the Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP (7867), or go to: http://svcrimestoppers.org. Those with information may be eligible for a reward.

20-year-old dies of Drive-by Shooting

San Jose police on Wednesday identified the 20-year-old man killed earlier this week in an apparent drive-by gang shooting as Héctor Manuel De La Rosa of San Jose.

De La Rosa was the city's sixth homicide this year.

Police Officer Jose Garcia, a department spokesman, said no one has been arrested and there is no new information to release.

At 11:05 p.m. Monday, police were called to the Cabana Apartments on Poco Way after receiving 911 calls about shots being fired. Officers found De La Rosa, who died at the scene.

Witnesses told police they saw a car driving off, but a description of the vehicle or the suspects has not been provided.

Of the six homicides so far this year, police say they believe at two are gang-related.

San Jose jewelry store owner who was fatally stabbed was hardworking man

Salvador Peña was a hardworking man.

He took care of horses, gardened, worked at Lucky's grocery stores and sold shoes.

Twelve years ago, he bought a small music and jewelry shop on Alum Rock Avenue in San Jose, where family members said he spent most of his waking hours. On Dec. 15, the 56-year-old Peña was stabbed multiple times in the front of his store, Peña Joyeria Y Discoteca.

And on Saturday, Peña died as a result of those wounds.

Now, as police are investigating this possible robbery-turned-homicide, Peña's extended family, in which he was the eldest of 13 siblings, is grappling with his death. They also are busy arranging his funeral and determining who, if anyone, in their brood is willing to take on the responsibility of keeping his store open.

"Grandma is going to decide," said David Madrigal, Peña's 17-year-old nephew.

On Monday, David Madrigal joined Peña's brother-in-law Javier Madrigal and Peña's brother Raul Pena, 49, at the closed shop, which sells CDs, watches, jewelry and religious icons. It also serves as a money-transfer/check-cashing station. The men briefly assisted two police detectives who came by about noon to review evidence in the case.

Police have released few details about the crime, but they have said a witness described a black man in his mid-20s, standing about 6 feet tall, of medium build and wearing dark clothes, who was seen inside the shop about 9:35 p.m. Dec. 15. A man who works next door told the Mercury News that video surveillance taken from his shop showed the man also was wearing a long coat, down to his knees. Peña's family thought there might even be two suspects.

The family said when paramedics arrived to help Salvador, who was suffering from severe knife wounds, he was conscious. But he wasn't awake by the time the family got there. They said he had gone back to the shop after hours because in the busy holiday shopping season he felt there was much work to do.

"We've never been able to speak with him," David Madrigal said.

Raul Peñasaid Salvador came to Southern California more than 30 years ago from Jalisco, Mexico, where he worked in a variety of jobs, often holding two at once. Salvador Peña never married and had no kids of his own.
"He worked too hard," Raul Peña said. But Salvador Peña treated his large family, especially his two nephews who lived with him, as his own.

"People thought I was his son," David Madrigal said. "He always brought me to work. He brought me to church. He'd watch me when my parents were at work and when we didn't have a lot of money. We lived in his home. He was our landlord."

Often quiet at home, his uncle became an extrovert at his shop, David Madrigal said. Several customers left online comments on the Mercury News website. One woman wrote that he often trusted customers to pay him later if they couldn't come up with the funds immediately.
Javier Madrigal, who worked in the shop part time, said Salvador Peña was more like a blood brother to him. "But we are a close family," he said. "And that helps."

Triple Homicide in San Jose Club Shootout

When three gunmen barged into a San Jose club to kidnap one of its owners, it triggered a firefight that left three dead, according to police.

Police revealed Tuesday afternoon the apparent motive for the bloody Saturday night shootout at the Mexicali Club and identified the names of the dead and two suspects who remain at large, possibly on their way to Mexico, including the Salinas getaway driver nicknamed "Mono."

But much still remains a mystery about the brazen attack that left two dead on the barroom floor, one shot in the back lot and a suspect dead in the getaway SUV found the next morning a block away.

The rare triple homicide exploded at 8:27 p.m. Saturday, when Antonio Barraza Allon, 31, and Manuel Rodriguez Barraza, 29, both of Salinas, and a third, unidentified suspect burst into the club on Oakland Road near Highway 101 to kidnap Humberto Velasquez Sanchez, 28, of San Lorenzo, "over an alleged debt," police reported.

But they were confronted by Manuel Morales Mendosa, 26, who was armed. A gunfight ensued. When the gunfire ended, Mendosa and Allon were dead. The next morning, residents found Barraza dead in a black 1997 Ford Explorer that was used as a getaway car.

Sanchez survived and is in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds.

Police said Tuesday they were still looking for the third gunman, who is unidentified, and the getaway driver, identified as Hector "Mono" Milla, 32, of Salinas, who is also known as Arnaldo Perez Santana. Police said they could be heading to Southern California or Mexico. 

In other news, another owner of the San Jose club has agreed to give up Mexicali's entertainment license for a month while coming up with a better security plan. Police said the club did not have any security personnel on hand Saturday night.

The owner is expected to meet with police next week to discuss the number of security personnel and where they will be stationed. It was unclear if the club would close for the month or simply open as a bar, without any music or dancing.

Police and city officials applauded the move and said it showed the ownership is serious about helping resolve any issues that may have turned the club into a 21st-century version of a Wild West saloon.

"What we are looking (for) is simply this: How can we make Mexicali a safer place to go?" said Lt. David Knopf, commander of the San Jose Police Department's vice unit.

Involuntary closures of clubs have become a controversial topic in San Jose, with two clubs running awry of the police after violence behind their velvet ropes.

Club Wet, one of the city's largest dance clubs, is facing permanent closure later this month. Police allege that club management has consistently failed to call police after bloodshed. The latest incident came on New Year's Eve, when a woman was reportedly beaten so badly that she had a hole kicked through her cheek with a stiletto heel. No one at the downtown hot spot, officials said, called either paramedics or police for help. Club management deny they did anything but try to help the woman, who they reported was suffering from a mere "scratch."

Mexicali has no major record of crimes or cover-ups, police said.

"It hasn't been a hot spot for us,'' Knopf said.

Councilman Sam Liccardo said the gunbattle in the club showed the club did not have adequate security, but that having more security would not necessarily have prevented the bloodshed in this case.

"This appears to be a highly unique situation with little to do with nightclub issues," Liccardo said.
Anyone with information about the case can contact Detective Sgt. Kevin Abruzzini or Detective Brian Spears of the San Jose Police Department homicide unit, at 408-277-5283, or visit http://svcrimestoppers.org. They may be eligible for a reward.

In a murderous month in San Jose, Lowell Noble is perhaps the most surprising victim of all: The 82-year-old man died Jan. 7, authorities say, because of a savage beating that occurred almost 12 years ago.

His attacker has been locked up for years, but on Wednesday, after an unusual ruling by the coroner, San Jose police reopened the case as a homicide.

Noble was suffering from heart problems and diabetes when he died. While he needed a walker to get around, he enjoyed bridge and Reader's Digest in his final years.

However, despite his advanced age and health problems, the most significant factor in Noble's death was trauma to his head -- the traumatic brain injury he suffered on May 15, 1999, in a San Jose house, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner.

More specifically, Noble suffered aspiration pneumonia because of dysphagia -- a swallowing problem. And that swallowing problem, the death certificate reads, was a direct result of his brain injury.

Prosecutors say it's too soon to tell whether they'll recharge the attacker with murder or manslaughter. That man, Walter Jones, 49, is now serving a 16-year attempted murder sentence for savagely beating Noble and Jones' mother, Linda, whom Noble was dating at the time.
Dr. Michelle Jorden, who signed Noble's death certificate, declined to speak about the case, saying it is against department policy to comment on open homicide investigations.
But Santa Clara County Sheriff Capt. Kevin Jensen, who oversees the coroner's office, said: "In general, the concept of delayed fatals is this: If the event caused an injury, and that injury was the largest contributing factor in the death, then it can be ruled a homicide."

Noble 'never the same'

Family members say that although Noble survived the 1999 attack, he never fully recovered.

"Dad was never the same," his oldest daughter, Mellissa Noble Asmussen, said after his funeral service this week.

He suffered short-term memory loss and was never able to live on his own again after the attack.
Deputy District Attorney Brian Welch said he needs to review the entire case again before deciding whether to recharge Jones. Jones was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and elder abuse. The other person Jones harmed that night was his mother, who lived in Campbell. Attempts to contact Linda Jones were unsuccessful.

Welch did say it would be an uphill battle to obtain a murder conviction. California law presumes that if a victim dies more than three years after an assault, then it is not a result of the crime, but allows arguments to the contrary to be made in court.

"Delayed fatals" happen regularly enough, but the gap between incident and death is usually much closer. In addition to Noble, San Jose had another one this year. Salvador Pena, a 56-year-old music and jewelry store owner in Alum Rock, was stabbed on Dec. 15 and died Jan. 8 as a result of those wounds.

San Jose police list Pena and Noble as 2011 homicide victims, bumping the number to nine -- a high figure in a city that had 20 homicides all of last year.

Delayed fatals that take years, however, are rarer. In one highly unusual case in 2009, a coroner in Virginia ruled a Navy veteran died as the result of a 1976 shooting that left him a quadriplegic. Prosecutors couldn't file charges in that case because Virginia law prevents murder prosecutions if the victim dies more than one year and one day after the fatal wound was inflicted.
Santa Clara University Law Professor Gerald Uelmen, a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team, said if Jones is charged with murder, "the case would likely come down to be a battle of the experts.

"Clearly, the longer the time lapses, the more difficult it will be," Uelmen said.
But the gory details and legal challenges of Noble's delayed death were not what his two remaining daughters and others chose to remember at his funeral service Tuesday afternoon.

Happier memories

The service was celebrated by a small group, including an old college pal who also attended the University of Oregon, where Noble received bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry. Noble had 17 patents under his name stemming from the 1950s. Among his inventions were 3-D viewing glasses and electron tube sockets, according to his family He ran his own company, QD Technology, in Los Gatos until he was injured in the attack, his family said. 

"Lowell was brilliant," Noble Pearson said in her eulogy.

But Noble Asmussen, 55, of San Jose, said her dad never bounced back after the brutal beating, in which she said Jones punched and kicked her father in the head with his boots: "The doctors said Dad would have been a vegetable if he hadn't been so intelligent."

Still to this day, she doesn't know what set off Jones.

After the attack, Noble was forced to close his business and move in with his middle daughter, Melenie Noble Pearson, and her husband.

Noble's wife, Robyn, died in 1984 of leukemia, and his youngest daughter, Melynda, died in 1996, when she was 32 years old.

The Noble family was surprised to learn that the coroner ruled their dad's death a homicide. And now, Noble Asmussen said she is "torn" about wanting her dad's attacker to be charged with another crime.

"I guess I feel like, yeah, Dad died that day, and now, it's just like we lost his shell," Noble Asmussen said. "But on the other hand, it's been so long. Maybe we just need to let things go."

City's First Homicide; 15- year-old boy

San Jose police are searching for suspects in the city's first homicide of the year.

At approximately 1:03 a.m., police received a call of a drive-by shooting in the 400 block of Auzerias Avenue, San Jose police Officer Jose Garcia said.

Officers found a 15-year-old boy suffering from gunshot wounds, Garcia said.

The boy, identified as Oscar Gonzales, was pronounced dead at the scene, he said.
Garcia said that an unknown number of suspects fled the scene in a vehicle and remain at large.

As of 2:23 a.m., police had no description of the suspects or the vehicle.