Friends and family of Nathan Torres, the 15-year-old Windsor teen fatally shot at a weekend party, are organizing a number of events to raise money for funeral costs.
"It's a tragedy this happened, and it's great the community's coming together," said Cherish Nu?, who described herself as the best friend of Jenifer Medeiros, Nathan Torres' mother. "(Jenifer) really appreciates all the support."
An online fundraising drive has raised more than $5,000 to help with funeral costs since it was created Monday night. The family estimates costs will be somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
"It's a testament to how really loved this boy is and his mother is," said Rose Reed, Torres' great aunt. She, along with her daughter, created the memorial fund for Torres on the website giveforward.com.
Several fundraising events are also taking shape. On Friday, BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse will hold a "dine and donate event" from 11?a.m. to midnight.
Participating diners can bring a flier printed or downloaded from the Dine and Donate for Nathan Torres Memorial Fund Facebook page and have 15 percent of their meal's cost donated to Torres's family.
Claudia Valentine, a manager at BJ's, said her company doesn't normally hold such fundraising events on their busiest days, like Fridays.
They also usually need two to three weeks to set them up. But when a family friend of Torres' approached them about holding the fundraiser, they agreed to do it on short notice.
"Hopefully we'll be able to help the family out quite a bit," she said.
Other fundraisers include a "Sweatin' 4 a Cause" boot camp at Windsor High School Sunday morning and a Zumba class, also at the high school, on Friday night.
Reed said the family is expecting a huge crowd could show up for Torres' memorial service, for which a date has not yet been set. They're hoping someone might be willing to donate the use of a large facility for the occasion.
Sheriff Steve Freitas on Wednesday called the death of the young teen a tragedy and said his detectives were working hard to find the shooter.
"I have absolute faith in the investigators, in the people working the case, that they're doing what needs to be done," Freitas said.
Detectives on Wednesday provided no new information on possible leads or suspects in the shooting that killed Torres and injured three others.
Freitas defended detectives' release of little information about the case. "I trust them to know how to protect their investigation and when to release information and when not to release."
Freitas also declined to discuss details of the case, including whether the victim and the shooter were believed to be gang members or if detectives have determined whether the death involved gang issues.
You can reach Staff Writer Jamie Hansen at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.
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