Riverside Drive Shooting, Standoff Started with Thrown Beer Bottle

A beer bottle thrown at a passing car instigated the shooting and subsequent police standoff that closed Riverside Drive near downtown for hours Friday afternoon, Watsonville police said.

One man was arrested after officers coaxed him from a Union Street home where he had hidden out and the shooting victim was flown to a Bay Area trauma center to be treated for a non life-threatening injury, police said. 

The suspect, whose name has not been released, apparently threw a beer bottle at the victim's car as the victim drove on the 100 block of Riverside Drive just before 3 p.m. A passenger got out of the car and tried to "keep an eye on the suspect," Lt. Terry Traub said. 

Meanwhile, the driver turned the car around and tried to go back to where the beer-bottle thrower had fled. That's when the bottle thrower fired a bullet into the car and hit the driver, Traub said. 

The bullet hit the driver. Local media reported he was struck in the back above his right hip.  

The suspect then ran into the adjacent neighborhood and hid out in a house that he didn't live in. A grandmother and a kindergarten-age girl were in the home at the time, according to media reports. They were held against their will, Traub said. 

Police shut down Riverside Drive between Marchant and Union streets for hours as the scene unfolded.

The suspect eventually surrendered. The girl and her grandmother were not physically harmed.

He was arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment, attempted murder, gun charges and participating in a gang.