Crime & Safety

Slain Teen was WHS Student

The 14-year-old was fatally shot on Hecker Pass on Saturday; grief counselors at his school Monday.

was a Watsonville High School freshman, Pajaro Valley Unified School Districts officials confirmed Monday morning.

Sheriff's dectectives anticipate an arrest in the case by the end of the week, but were still sifting through evidence and conducting interviews Monday, a lead investigator said.

The principal is working with Student Services to provide counseling to students who need someone to talk to, according to Brett McFadden, chief business officer for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.

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The boy, whose name has not been released, was slain in a dirt turnout on the two-lane mountain road about four miles outside of Watsonville. He was taken to Watsonville Community Hospital, where he died. A second teen, also 14, was shot as well. That boy was treated and released from the hospital, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's detectives on Monday released more information about the violence. The teens were passengers in a car that drove up Hecker Pass and pulled off in the turnout.

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"There was some type of altercation that occurred with other people who were in that car," said Sgt. Ian Patrick of the Sheriff's Office Investigations Unit.

Shots were fired and the car took off, leaving the injured teens on the side of the highway. One of the victims called 911 around 8:15 p.m. Saturday for help, the first report of the shooting, according to emergency radio traffic.

"It it was in Watsonville, it would be understandable. But out here, you would never think of it," said a man who saw the ambulance speeding away from the crime scene Saturday night but declined to give his name.

Detectives said the attack was gang related.

"We suspect that it’s gang related based on past history of the victims involved and the suspects," Patrick said.

Santa Cruz police arrested five young men at a house on the 600 block of Laurel Street on Sunday morning on suspicion of fighting, gang participation and weapons possession, according to County Jail records. Patrick said detectives were questioning those men—from Watsonville, Royal Oaks, Los Banos and Santa Cruz—but had not charged any with murder.

"There hasn’t been an arrest," he said. "I’m confident there will be an arrest shortly but it may not be before the end of the week. There’s a lot of players involved in this case. We’re still doing interviews and going through evidence.”

The gun used also has not been found, Patrick added.

Monday, there was scant evidence of the crime left at the Highway 152 turnout. A length of police tape was caught in a bush, burned-out road flares lay in the gravel and tire tracks showed someone peeled out of there.

Six of those slayings were gang-related. All of the victims were young men; their average age was 21. No arrests have been made in any of the killings.


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