Fullerton : Police Investigating Parking Lot Shooting

Fullerton police Friday were investigating the suspicious shooting of a Fresno man who claimed he was wounded in a bar parking lot after he mistook two men for friends, authorities said.

Sgt. Roger White said that Ronald Acosta, 48, was in serious but stable condition at Fullerton Community Hospital with a gunshot wound in the neck and lung.

Acosta told detectives that he was shot about 8 p.m. Thursday after he approached two Latino men seated in a parked car behind a bar in the 400 block of South Harbor Boulevard, White said.

When he realized he didn’t know the two men, Acosta told investigators he tried to engage them in conversation and one of the men raised a pistol and fired a single shot at him. Acosta claimed he was shot without provocation as he tried to flee.

The Fresno man, who said he was in Fullerton after visiting his wife in a nearby prison facility, admitted himself for treatment of the gunshot wound. Fullerton police were notified by hospital emergency room personnel, White said.

Because of inconsistencies in Acosta’s account and his alleged lack of cooperation with detectives, police said the incident was being handled as a suspicious shooting and the investigation was broadening in scope.

“We feel there is a possibility the victim is not giving us all the information as to what took place,” White said.