KING CITY — A pair of Sureno street gang members from King City have pleaded guilty to various charges stemming from a gang-related shooting last August that injured a 16-year-old girl.
Victor Manuel Reyes, 29, and Placido Omar Casas, 20, both pleaded guilty June 21 to the crime and will be sentenced July 26. They are facing a 23-year and 15-year prison sentence, respectively.
PLACIDO CASAS
VICTOR REYES
According to the King City Police Department, reports from residents helped investigators to quickly identify the men as being responsible for the shooting that took place Aug. 5, 2016, in King City.
At about 6:30 p.m. that evening, a 16-year-old girl and her male friend left a memorial gathering for a friend who was killed in a recent gang homicide and were driving toward Highway 101 when a small brown pickup began following them. As the teenagers turned onto the northbound 101 onramp at Canal Street, one of the truck’s occupants fired shots at their car.
The girl was struck once in the head and was taken to a trauma center in San Jose, where she survived but lost sight in her left eye. Police said she is a “brave young woman and has resumed her studies to graduate from high school.”
Police arrested Reyes and Casas within 30 minutes of the shooting, thanks to citizens who reported that two suspicious subjects in their neighborhood were abandoning a truck with a pair of flat tires.
“This could not have been possible without the help of citizens,” police said in a news release. “… Unbeknownst to them, the subjects were suspects in the shooting, which had just occurred.”
Reyes was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, use of firearm in commission of a crime, commission of a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang and prior strike enhancement, while Casas was charged with mayhem and commission of a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang.
King City Police Chief Robert Masterson said this case is an example of how police and community members can work together to “bring individuals to justice who chose to prey on the community.”
Masterson thanked the California Highway Patrol, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and the Greenfield Police Department for responding to assist the night of the incident, as well as the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution of this case.
