Owner of Video Store Shot Dead During Dispute With Customer

According to his friends, Manuel Ramirez was a proud, self-made, family-oriented businessman who had achieved a measure of success with his flower shop and clothing stores in Santa Ana’s South Main Street area.

The friends said Ramirez, 37, was continuing his lifelong drive for success Thursday at his 3-year-old Video Disco International store in the same neighborhood when he refused to accept an application for one of the shop’s membership cards. The address and phone number on the application form had not checked out.

The incident cost Ramirez his life.

An argument erupted between Ramirez and Juan Ceja, authorities said, and Ceja fired three shots at Ramirez, who later died at Western Medical Center.

Santa Ana police said Ceja was picked up along with two juveniles and another adult after witnesses provided authorities with a description of the car that sped away from the store’s parking lot after the shooting. Officers found a .38-caliber gun in the car, police said.

Ceja, 27, of Santa Ana is being held at the Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail, according to Santa Ana Police Lt. Mike Mitchell. The two juveniles and adult were released after questioning.

On the day he was killed, Ramirez was negotiating to buy a new limousine for his family, a purchase that would coincide with his oldest son’s 15th birthday, said Hector Arvizu, 19, a friend of the family.

Arvizu described Ramirez as a hard-working self-made man who had opened up a flower shop on South Main Street, which he named Marie’s Flowers, after his 8-year-old daughter.

Genoveva Cashman, 34, of Yorba Linda, who leased an office in the complex that Ramirez also owned on South Main, described him as an industrious businessman who dreamed about selling his property and starting all over again.

“He wanted to move back to Mexico with his family and take a vacation for three or four months and then come back and open up a new business,” Cashman said.

Cashman said Ramirez was well known in the area because of the flower shop and video store he operated with his wife, Manuela. He could also be seen on holidays such as Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day at a Mobil station on the corner of Edinger and Main streets, where he would set up a tent booth to sell flowers.

Funeral services are being arranged. Ramirez is survived by his wife and their three children, Eddie, 15, Adrian, 12, and Marie, 9.