ARTICLES FROM A COUPLE YEARS BACK

Sunday, July 10, 2005
By SARAH BURGE / The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE - The call came in at 3:30 a.m. on March 6.
"There's a guy -- he's been shot," Gloria Murrietta gasped into the phone. "I just got home ... he's cold ... he's cold ... he's my boyfriend ... I don't think he's breathing." She started to sob.
Murrietta, 24, a student at UCR, had just arrived at her apartment in Riverside's Casa Blanca neighborhood after a night out with her sister. There were two messages on her answering machine from her boyfriend, David Barrios, 25.
"He said, 'I'm outside. Come find me,'" Murrietta said.
Barrios left the first message at 2:05 a.m. By the time she got it, he was already dead. Murrietta found him in front of her Lincoln Avenue apartment building, shot just once, lying on the sidewalk near his car.
"I got home and I saw his car and I was happy that he was there," Murrietta said, tears flowing down her cheeks. "I don't even know how to explain it. It was the most horrible feeling ever."
No Gang Ties
Four months have passed since Barrios was killed, and police are no closer to finding the person who shot him.
Barrios hadn't been robbed. His family said he didn't have any enemies. And the police are convinced that he had no gang ties.
"He just doesn't fit that mold at all," said Detective Rick Wheeler, the investigator who is handling the case. "This was really just an average kid who was there to see his girlfriend. It was a random act. Completely senseless."
After the shooting, investigators canvassed the neighborhood but found no witnesses.
Neighbors heard shots, Wheeler said, "but, quite frankly, gunshots over there can be common."
Wheeler said he can only guess at the killer's motive.
"(The victim) was not a regular to Casa Blanca," Wheeler said, adding that there could have been some issue because he wasn't from the neighborhood.
Barrios had been living in Corona. He and Murrietta met while they were students at Lincoln High School in Riverside.
Wheeler said Casa Blanca can be a difficult neighborhood for investigators because of the history of tension between police and residents.
It's a history that people in Casa Blanca remember well. Longtime residents discussed their concerns about a recent spike in violence around the neighborhood Wednesday night at a meeting with Riverside police Lt. Pete Esquivel. They talked about shootings from the past year in the same breath as they mentioned decades-old cases -- and decades-old gripes about the police.
But longtime Casa Blanca resident Morris Mendoza said the perception that people in the neighborhood won't cooperate with police is misleading.
"That's a stereotype we get," Mendoza said. "He was out late at night. It's hard to get witnesses at night! It's the criminal element that knows about this. It's not your average citizen that's trying to hide anything."
Mendoza said the best way to get information about the Barrios killing may be to offer a reward.
Wheeler said, "95 percent of the people in that area are decent folks. But sometimes the fear of what could happen to them overrides their willingness to come forward. It could be fear of retaliation."
On top of that, Wheeler said, "There may be an assumption that because he was out there at 3:30 a.m., he must have been up to no good."
When Barrios was killed, Murrietta said, "At my job, they didn't want to give me days off because they said, 'How do we know he wasn't just some gang banger?'"
'It Had to Be Random'
Barrios' parents, Lupe and Eufemio Barrios, have turned their Eastside house into a memorial to their son. The walls are filled with photo collages of him. A cross with his name on it hangs in a tree in the front yard. Barrios' parents have inherited his dog, Tyson, a little black mutt who liked to nibble on people's ears.
The family described Barrios as a lovable guy who'd reached a happy spot in his life. Barrios was part owner of a smoke shop on Van Buren Boulevard for a year. He had just paid off the loan on his car. He had many friends and was sharing a house in Corona with several of them.
Rick Pardo, who works at Cut Throat Glass, the store Barrios partly owned, said, "It had to be random. It hurt a lot of people. David was the type of person you wanted to have around. He had a million-dollar smile. He'd say, 'You gotta slow down!'"
"All of his friends, they're just like, 'How could that happen to him?' I just wish that he could be here," Pardo said.
"He had so many goals, and he would always tell me about them," Murrietta said. "He talked about going back to school. He always wanted to have his own business. But, he had so many ideas he couldn't really settle on just one."
"Now, we're not gonna get to grow old together. We won't be able to have kids," Murrietta said. "That's why it hurts so much. It hurts me to think he isn't going to get to do those things.
"Why anyone would do that to David?" Murrietta said, choking up. "I knew it was a bad neighborhood, but I thought if I minded my own business, it'd be OK."
Murrietta still lives in the same apartment. She said she wants to leave, but she doesn't have the money. She just graduated from college and is starting a master's of teaching program in the fall.
She still has the messages Barrios left the night he died. "When I'm missing him a lot, I listen to them," Murrietta said. "But it's kind of torture."

Saturday, December 24, 2005
By SARAH BURGE / The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE - A shooting during a party injured five people early Saturday.
Callers reported gunshots to Riverside police about 1:20 a.m. in the 5500 block of Willard Way. An altercation started during the party and shots were fired, a Riverside Police Department news release stated.
Shortly after the initial calls, police received separate reports of the victims being in other locations. One man and one male youth were found on streets near the party, according to the release.
Another man and male youth had been driven to Parkview Community Hospital. The fifth man had been taken to a residence in the Casa Blanca neighborhood.
None of the injuries were considered life threatening, police said.
One adult was from Idaho, while everyone else was from Riverside.
Riverside detectives are investigating whether gangs were involved.
The shooting occurred about a half mile from a shooting Dec. 3 that resulted in the death of a 15-year-old Ramona High School student. Officers arrested an 18-year-old gang member on suspicion of that homicide, but did not believe the victim was in a gang.

Father, son shot in front of home
CASA BLANCA: A drive-by incident draws a crowd after victims, ages 48 and 29, are hit in their chests.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
By DAVID RACLIN/The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE - A Riverside man and his son were shot Wednesday afternoon while they took a break from fixing their truck in front of their Casa Blanca home. Gloria Lopez, 50, said she was preparing dinner about 3 p.m. inside her home on Blackstone Avenue at Bloom Way when she heard gunfire. She went outside to find that her husband, Alfredo, 48, and son, Luis, 29, had been shot by people in a white compact car. The home is near Lincoln Avenue and Madison Street.
Both men were shot at least once in the chest but the wounds were not life-threatening, Riverside police Lt. Bruce Loftus said at the scene. They were taken to Riverside Community Hospital.
A police dog and helicopter were called in to search for those involved in the drive-by attack, police spokesman Steve Frasher said in a news release. There had been no arrests by late Wednesday.
Loftus said he did not know if the shooting was gang-related but said that gangs are active in the area.
Crowds of people were held behind yellow police tape while detectives investigated.
Juan Vasquez, 49, watched from Lincoln Avenue while traffic backed up as drivers slowed to look down Blackstone at the emergency vehicles.
"I'm tired of the shooting," said Vasquez, who works in the area.
Sara Reynoso, 29, of Orange County, said she had grown up nearby and was visiting a friend who lives close to the shooting site. Her friend's neighbors had been trying to sell their home for a year, Reynoso said.
"It's so hard to sell their home," she said. "They want their kid to grow up somewhere else."
Gloria Lopez, the wife and mother of the victims, said her family has lived in their house for 23 years.
When asked about her husband's age, she had trouble remembering because, she said, his birthday is next week.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
By SARAH BURGE / The Press-Enterprise
RIVERSIDE - A Casa Blanca man who was a Guatemalan immigrant was found shot dead near Villegas Park early Sunday, police said.
The body of Juan Francisco Gonzalez was found by a parks department worker about 6:50 a.m, according to police Sgt. John Capen. He was found lying face down near Bunker and Peters streets.
The man's brother later identified him but did not know his exact age, Capen said. He is believed to have been 34 years old.
Capen said a wallet containing some cash was found near the body. The victim's brother said he was paid Friday. Police suspect he may have worked as a day laborer.
As of Monday, police had no suspects in the killing and had not identified a motive. But Gonzalez does not appear to have been a gang member, Capen said. He was last seen at about 11 p.m. Saturday.
Gonzalez lived with three of his brothers in Casa Blanca and had a wife in Guatemala, Capen said.


Friday, January 9, 2004
By DOUG HABERMAN / The Press-Enterprise
The night before Richard Morales, a 17-year-old from Corona, was planning to enroll in an alternative high school in Riverside and pick up a tuxedo for a school dance, an unknown gunman shot him to death, Riverside police and family members said Thursday.
It was the first homicide of 2004 in Riverside.
Investigators said the shooting occurred at 11:51 p.m. Wednesday on Peters Street in the Casa Blanca neighborhood. Morales died at Riverside Community Hospital at 12:44 a.m., according to the Riverside County coroner's office.
Police have no suspects, Sgt. Steve Johnson said.
Family members said Morales, a student at Centennial High School in Corona, was staying at his grandmother's house on Emerald Street, one block south of Peters. He and a close friend were walking to the friend's house on Peters when the gunman, wearing dark clothing, appeared in the street two houses away and began firing, said Morales' cousin, Adrian Gonzalez, 19.
Police said that the friend called police and reported that Morales had been shot.
Family members said no one had any reason to target Morales, whom they described as a good young man. He was nicknamed "Lucha" because he loved televised wrestling shows and wrestling with his cousins and friends.
"It was random," Veronica Palomares, 21, an aunt of Morales, said of the shooting.
His death came just as Morales was making key strides in his life, relatives said.
He intended to sign up Thursday for Raincross High School, an alternative school, said his maternal grandmother, Pomposa Palomares. Grieving family members were gathered around her outside her house.
"He thought that he could do better" at Raincross than at Centennial, she said. "He wanted to graduate."
Morales' dream was to go to college, find a nice job and buy a house, the family said.

Monday, October 20, 2003
RIVERSIDE - An 18-year-old Riverside man died in the hospital after being shot early Sunday morning in the Casa Blanca neighborhood of Riverside, police said.
The man, identified by coroner's officials as David Lara, was shot at least once at about 2 a.m. in the area of Bunker and Peters streets, said Riverside police Sgt. Steve Johnson.
The man stumbled about a block before collapsing on Peters near Madison Street, Johnson said. He died about an hour later at Riverside Community Hospital.
Authorities said there were witnesses to the shooting, but declined to discuss what those witnesses saw, because it might jeopardize the investigation. Johnson said physical evidence, including shell casings, were recovered at the scene.
Several hours after the shooting, Peters Street from Bunker to Madison was blocked off to traffic. The sight of patrol cars and yellow crime scene tape drew dozens of curious onlookers who had just emerged from Sunday church services.
Johnson said officers were notified about the shooting after several residents called 911 to report hearing gunshots.
Eleanor Manzanares was one of them.
"It went kapow, kapow, kapow. At first I thought it was fireworks," Manzanares recalled later in the morning.
Manzanares said news of the shooting immediately brought back memories of her own son's death. Her 21-year-old son Christopher was shot and killed in the same neighborhood in 1989, she said.
"It's tragic. It's got to stop," she said. "In the old days, they used to duke it out. Using a gun is the coward's way out."
Residents who live on Peters, a tree-lined street occupied by single-story homes with chain-link fences, said they frequently hear gunshots in the area.
Jose and Martha Diaz said they heard a burst of gunfire at about 1:30 a.m. outside their home, but thought nothing of it.
"It always happens. We hear gunshots all the time. Because we're close to the park, we think nothing of it -- they're usually shooting into the air or playing with fireworks," Martha Diaz said.
About a half-hour later, they heard another series of shots, followed by the sound of a car speeding away. This time, Diaz looked out the window and saw police cars and knew something was wrong.
"It has been quiet all summer. Then this happens -- it's sad."


2 Dead In Riverside Shooting
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CBS)
Police were investigating a shooting that left a 19-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man from Riverside dead near a supermarket, authorities said.

Riverside police found the body of Denaya Marie Shanks on the sidewalk of Lincoln Avenue, just east of Miguel Street, near a Stater Bros. Market at in the 2800 block of Mary Street. coroner's officials said. Shanks apparently suffered multiple gunshot wounds, said Riverside police Lt. Victor Williams.

Michael Edward Benge, 24, was also found with gunshot wounds at the scene. He was taken to a local hospital where he died at 1:40 p.m. Saturday.

Police arrived at the scene at about 9:30 p.m. yesterday after a 911 caller reported gunshots near the Stater Bros. Market.

Witnesses told police they heard people arguing loudly near the market before the shots were fired. Several men wearing white t-shirts and baggy pants were seen fleeing on foot shortly after the shots were heard, Williams said.

Shanks and Benge had apparently both suffered multiple gunshot wounds, said Williams. 

No further details are available on the suspects and the investigation is ongoing, Williams said.