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Reedley (Fresno County) CA 93654 | 50 cents July 4 shooting claims life of local 18-year-old
Vol. 129, No. 28 | Thursday, July 12, 2018
Israel Cruz becomes Reedley’s second homicide victim in 2018
By Jon Earnest
jon@midvalleypublishing.com
Police detectives are investigating Reedley’s sec- ond homicide of 2018 — and second in just more than a month — after an 18-year-old Reedley man died two days after being shot multiple times the evening of the Fourth of July holiday.
Israel Cruz was gunned down shortly after 9:30 p.m. as he was crossing Parlier Avenue from the south side abutting T.L. Reed K-8 School. He was wounded by three bullets from an unidentified shooter or shooters.
According to Reedley police Lt. Marc Ediger, Cruz was shot after talking with someone in a parked vehicle.
That person is not a suspect, and it’s believed the shots fired came from the direction of the school.
“We don’t have a motive,” Ediger said. “It does not appear random, but I don’t know that for sure. It doesn’t have the appearance of a random shooting.”
Ediger said Cruz was out talking with several peo- ple near the time of the shooting, more than an hour after sunset and while fireworks were being set by the public.
“His family was down the street a little ways doing fireworks,” he said. “They didn’t directly see the shoot- ing but were there almost right after the [shooting].”
Ediger said fireworks going off in the area added to initial confusion immediately after the shooting.
“There were a lot of fireworks going off, so it was very hard to determine gunshots versus fireworks,” he said. “Obviously, when he went down in the middle of
See HOMICIDE on page A3
Crime tape blocks off the area as Reedley police talk at the site of a fatal shooting on Parlier Avenue
on July 4. Israel Cruz, 18, was shot multiple times and died July 6 at a Fresno hospital.
Jesus Gonzalez / Photo Contributed
3 bodies
found in
Reedley
apartment
By Jon Earnest
jon@midvalleypublishing.com
Police are investigating the deaths of a woman and her two young children found July 9 in an apartment near Lincoln Elementary School in central Reedley.
An autopsy was scheduled for July 11 to determine the cause of death of the victims, according to a news release by the Reedley Police Department. Initial information at the scene hinted at a possible mur- der-suicide investigation.
Reedley police and emergency crews were called to a unit at the Oakwood Manor Apartments in the 600 block of East Myrtle Avenue — just east of Lincoln School — at about 7:30 p.m. on July 9. They found the bodies of 32-year-old Vera Lucia Diaz Nunez, her 4-year-old son Oc- tavio Farfan Diaz and 21-month-old daughter Miranda Farfan Diaz in the apartment.
“There were no gunshots, or anything of that nature,” Joe Garza, Reedley police chief, said on July 10. “The actual cause of death we have not been able to determine. At this point it would just be speculation, so we have to wait until the autopsy is done and we receive the coroner’s report.”
Garza said the victims were found in separate rooms. He said there was no evidence that would point to carbon monoxide poisoning or a similar incident.
Three officers and firefighters with the Reedley Fire Department responded to the initial call. Police detectives later arrived at the scene to talk to family members and neigh- bors.
See BODIES on page A2
Homeless concerns near river
ABOVE: Pao Saphan, owner of Sam’s Strawberry, stood in his fruit stand on July 10. Saphan said homeless people have camped on the land behind his business and littered the area just east of the Kings River with trash from various items. About 50 homeown- ers from the River Bottom subdivi- sion attended a July 3 meeting with police and city leaders to discuss the problem.
LEFT: A black bag containing cloth- ing from a homeless person was left next to stalks of corn in land behind Saphan’s fruit stand. Trash left by the homeless including drug parapherna- lia and needles have been left along the east bank of the Kings River.
Photos by Jon Earnest / The Exponent
Police meet with
residents about
problem near River
Bottom subdivision
By Jodie Reyna
Mid Valley Publishing
Over the past 18 months, Reedley police say the city’s homeless popula- tion has risen to levels never seen be- fore.
A new encampment erected within the past few months along the Kings River, west of the River Bottom subdi- vision, has generated a number of calls to police from nearby homeowners. Residents have reported homeless peo- ple stealing their property, trespassing through their yards, and peering over their fences. The encampments also poses a fire risk that City Manager Ni- cole Zieba said the city is monitoring on a “minute by minute basis.”
Reedley Police Lieutenant Marc Ediger said police are now focusing their efforts more on the homeless problem than on Reedley’s gang mem- bers.
“We have always had a few home- less, but never has it risen to the lev- els we have seen in the past couple of years,” Ediger said at a July 3 meeting convened by city officials to address the homeless problem.
The meeting was held at Redeem- er’s Church in Reedley and attended by about 50 homeowners living in the River Bottom subdivision.
“We are just as frustrated as you are,” Ediger told the homeowners.
A group of between 15 and 20 home- less people, mostly men between the ages of 19 and 50, recently set up an encampment west of the subdivision. They had previously lived in an en- campment in orchards along Buttonwil- low Avenue until the landowner cleared the orchards. The new encampment along the Kings River stretches from the River Bottom subdivision north to the Manning Avenue bridge.
See HOMELESS on page A6
Council members critical of latest water bond
Jon Earnest / The Exponent
Dominic Figueroa, a campaign coordinator touting the Water Supply and Water Quality Act of 2018 (Proposition 3), addressed the Reedley City Council on June 26 about the state initiative that will go before California voters on Nov. 6.
Classified - B6-7 Directory - A5 Legals - B5
Proposition 3 representative spoke to city leaders at June 26 meeting
By Jon Earnest
jon@midvalleypublishing.com
Members of the Reedley City Council — Bob Beck in particular — didn’t mince words in response to a June 26 presentation by a proponent of the Water Supply and Water Quality Act of 2018 that is on the ballot for the November election.
Dominic Figueroa, a campaign coordinator for Proposition 3 — an $8.9 billion water bond measure meant to follow up on Proposition 1 funding from 2014 — talked to the council in a presentation where he hoped to secure city support by either a vote or proclamation.
Beck wasted no time in telling Figueroa where he stood on the issue.
“I was sold in Temperance Flat, the last water bond, because we were going to get water storage,” he said. “This one doesn’t talk anything at all about water stor- age. We need water storage here.
Sports - B3-4 Lights & Sirens - A3
“This is not going to walk with me if we don’t have storage.”
Beck emphasized how the promised support of the additional dam above Friant Dam was short-circuited by lack of state support. He said legislators and state water representatives cut back plans for funding, all but killing a Temperance Flat project.
“We haven’t had an infrastructure built in this area since the early 1950s,” Beck said as Council Member Mary Fast mentioned 1956 in particular. “They took that away with us. We were told that was all taken care of, that it was in [the plans]. It gets up [to Sacramento] and they go ‘Oh, the language is wrong.’ You’re telling me to believe again.”
Beck also blasted the water bond and previous propo- sitions with never actually addressing the water quality crisis in disadvantaged communities.
“When are you going to go out into these disadvan- taged communities and fix their water problem?” Beck loudly asked. “Every water bond that I’ve seen come out talks about fixing water in disadvantaged communities.
“I couldn’t stop and drink the water in Seville or Yettem because of the terrible well systems. What are
See WATER on page A2 Obituaries - A2-3 Opinion - A4