Man dead in west Santa Rosa shooting

A half-dozen gunshots rang out early Wednesday at a townhouse complex off West Steele Lane in Santa Rosa, where neighbors and police found a 27-year-old man dying from his wounds on the sidewalk, police officials said.

The man was shot just before 7:25 a.m. along a walkway leading to a rear parking lot at the Cedar Woods Townhouses near Apple Valley Lane, Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Dave Linscomb said. Neighbors reported seeing a man, presumably the shooter, running away after the gunfire, heading west on West Steele Lane.

Police still were searching for a suspect Wednesday evening. Officials did not immediately release the identity of the man who was killed.

Detectives suspect the shooter either hid in an alcove or caught the Santa Rosa man off guard as he walked through a pathway between buildings to his parked car. It appeared that the victim had parked his car along a sidewalk in a rear parking area, gone back to his residence and had walked back to his vehicle when he encountered the shooter outside, Linscomb said.

“It definitely seems that the victim was targeted,” Linscomb said.

The sound of several “pops” sent neighbor Jeremy Becerril, 27, running out of his home and to the walkway where he saw a man lying face down, covered in blood. His wife, Stephanie, 26, said she heard someone yell, ‘They shot my husband’ moments after the gunfire.

Becerril, a medical assistant, performed CPR on the dying man until police and paramedics arrived.

“I found a vague pulse a couple of times … I tried,” he said.

Paramedics and police took over resuscitative efforts, but the man died.

Officers unfurled yellow police tape from a row of garages across the driveway of the townhome complex.

A woman, who police said was the victim’s wife or girlfriend, sat on the ground on the other side of the vehicle from where the man lay dead while a detective spoke to her.

On the other side of a fence, officers stood with guns drawn around an Apple Valley Lane apartment building while they investigated a report that the shooter may have hid there.

Police said that they had only a vague description of the shooter as a man in his 20s wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.

Neighbor Richard Schmidt, 64, said that he knew the shooting victim from casual conversations in the parking lot.

“He and his wife have a baby less than a year old; he was a family man,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said the man, whose first name was Jesus, ran a car lot on Santa Rosa Avenue and always had new cars parked up and down the street. The couple lived with one of their parents at Cedar Woods, according to Schmidt.

Anyone with information about the case can call the Santa Rosa Police Department’s violent crimes investigations team at 543-3590.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.