Police remain tightlipped about the gang-related murder of Francisco Rodriguez Lopez, a 19-year-old who was shot and killed Monday afternoon while driving around north Gilroy.
Someone in a separate car - carrying an unknown number of suspects - fired a pistol into the vehicle Lopez was traveling in just before 3 p.m. Monday, near the intersection of Monterey Road and Farrell Avenue. Lopez was hit at least twice before the unknown driver of the car he was in took him to a nearby hospital. He died shortly thereafter.
Police have not released descriptions of either car but impounded the vehicle that took Lopez to the emergency room, according to a preliminary police report and inquiries made at the Gilroy Police Department Station the next day by a blue-clad adult male looking for his car that had been impounded.
Detectives and the police department's Anti-Crime Team have been working 15-hour days trying to uncover the hazy details of the case and are still trying to determine whether Lopez's attackers belonged to a rival street gang or whether infighting caused his death, police said. Gangs used to hold clearly marked territories in Gilroy due to the concentration of low-income housing in a few parts of town, but the proliferation of such housing throughout the city in recent years has spread gangs apart and blurred once-demarcated territories, Sgt. Jim Gillio said. This makes it difficult to say that just because something occurred in north Gilroy, it was a red-clad Norte'o clique defending their territory against blue-clad intruders from the south.
When it comes to gang-related incidents, law enforcement officials can also face a lack of cooperation from potential witnesses who fear working with police could lead to reprisal attacks, or they simply do not want to help police. Still, when a murder happens, Gilroy police are ready, Sgt. Gillio said.
"We're ready for it to happen, and when it happens, we'll take care of what we have to do with the resources we have," Sgt. Gillio said in reference to budget cuts and a hiring freeze that have hampered the department's growth. Councilman Perry Woodward has pointed to the inverse relation between the economy and crime, a relation that taxes police officers who have less resources to combat an increasing problem.
That's something Councilman Dion Bracco has brought up repeatedly during recent council meetings, as well as outside of City Hall. Dealing with what he has called Gilroy's "sky-rocketing" gang problem will require the city council to reconsider the relative importance of other issues such as sidewalk repair that pale in comparison to the life-and-death problem of gang violence.
This problem also concerns the school district. Antonio Del Buono Elementary School, 9300 Wren Avenue, sits just a block west from the murder scene, and dozens of children and their guardians walk home at the time the shooting took place, but no parents have called the school with questions or concerns, Principal Velia Codiga said. She added that the school district was looking at the possibility of implementing further safety measures at the school.
Hours after the murder Monday, several residents reported seeing police cars cordoning off the section of Farrell Avenue between Severance and Monterey streets, but they said they did not hear or see anything at the time of the shooting, further muddying the circumstances of the violent attack.
Chris Bone Chris Bone covers Gilroy or South Valley Newspapers. Reach him at 847-7109 or e-mail him at cbone@gilroydispatch.com.
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