Crime & Safety

Homicide Victim Identified

Detectives have few leads, in part because the 22-year-old woman hurt by gunfire is too injured to aid investigators.

Dominic Jerome Mower, 37, was early Wednesday morning, the Watsonville Police Department confirmed Thursday.

Detectives have said they believe Mower was targeted, but yet to say what may have motivated the shooting. A 22-year-old woman was also shot several times; she was flown to an out-of-county trauma center.

"She has since been uncooperative with the investigation and unable to communicate due to her medical state," Watsonville police Saul Gonzalez said in a prepared statement Thursday.

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The shooting happened around 3 a.m. Wednesday in a quiet neighborhood off Freedom Boulevard. Neighbors said it was police officers responding, not gunshots, that woke them up.

and searching the building where the shooting occurred for evidence.

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"At this point, or who was responsible for the murder," Gonzalez said.

Mower had been living in the Prospect Street building where he was fatally shot, Gonzalez said Wednesday. Previously, he had listed his address in Aptos.

Mower has an extensive criminal record, including involvement in a police standoff in the same building where he died.

He was arrested at the same location in February, following . Deputies were looking for a stolen gun when Mower and another man, Andrew Rodriguez Casillas, then 27, of Watsonville refused to let them into the building.

Both were arrested. , but Mower remained behind bars on warrants for petty theft and driving on a suspended license, and because his probation was revoked.

It wasn't known Thursday what the result of those charges were or if Mower served any jail time.


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