Gunshot, hit and run connected in downtown Santa Rosa incident

Police don’t know much about a series of events that unfolded in downtown Santa Rosa before ?6 a.m. Saturday, but they do know one man was shot, at least two men were involved in a hit-and-run and the two incidents are somehow connected.

“It’s still quite a mystery,” Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Marcus Sprague said Saturday afternoon.

The events started shortly before 6 a.m., when police responded to the 100 block of west 7th Street for a report of a hit-and-run collision involving a parked vehicle, according to a Nixle alert.

While police investigated that incident, perpetrated by at least two adult male suspects driving a Chevy Volt, a man walked into the Hotel La Rose lobby complaining of a gunshot wound. He was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Sprague said police won’t release any names at this point, citing the complex, ongoing investigation, but he said the gunshot victim was released from the hospital just a couple of hours after arriving.

The shooting appears to have taken place as the suspects fled the spot of the hit-and-run crash, but the victim was uncooperative with police, according to the Nixle alert.

“No one is cooperative, and no one is telling the truth about what happened,” Sprague said.

Santa Rosa police released the Nixle alert shortly before 3 p.m., about nine hours after the initial incident. Sprague said if police felt the public was at risk, they would have sent an alert more quickly.

The department’s patrol division will continue investigating this weekend, and Sprague said the violent crimes unit will take over Monday.

General Manager Max Childs was at Hotel La Rose on Wilson Street about noon Saturday, and said he had been texting with his overnight employee about the incident. The lobby door was unlocked, and the man came in saying he’d been shot, Childs said, reading text messages from his phone.

He said there didn’t appear to be any blood in the lobby, but otherwise wasn’t sure what happened.

Anyone with information is asked to call 707-528-5222.

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or at tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @tylersilvy.