Leery Owners Reopen Shops After Killing

Merchants nervously resumed business Sunday at a small shopping center in Oxnard where a man buying a soda was killed in a drive-by shooting that authorities said was Ventura County’s first homicide this year.

Rufino Ducler, 45, of Camarillo was shot once in the back Saturday in the parking lot of the busy shopping center near First Street and Rose Avenue, said Sgt. Denny Phillips of the Oxnard Police Department.

Ducler was pronounced dead at St. John’s Regional Medical Center less than an hour after the 5 p.m. shooting in the Latino barrio, La Colonia. He was the first person in the county to be murdered this year, Deputy Coroner Jim Wingate said.

Phillips said that Ducler was not a gang member, but police have not ruled out the possibility that the gunmen may have been connected to a gang. Witnesses could not provide descriptions of the car or how many people were in it, Phillips said.

Ducler, who worked at a paper recycling company in Oxnard, “seems to be an innocent victim of circumstance, kind of the wrong place at the wrong time,” Phillips said.

In recent years, the small parking lot where Ducler was shot has been the scene of drinking and brawling, Phillips said.

Only three hours after Ducler was shot, store clerks watched in fear as a fight erupted in the same lot. A window at the Ortiz Bakery was shot out, said bakery worker Juan Ortiz as he served customers Sunday.

Police may assign another patrol unit to the area if the violence continues, Phillips said. One unit patrols the area at present, he said.

A clerk at one of the stores said Ducler was a frequent customer who stopped by Saturday to buy a soda. The clerk, who asked to be identified only as Virgie, said she is worried about the escalation of crime at the small stores in the center that cater primarily to neighborhood shoppers.

“I’m telling you, it’s scary, scary!” Virgie said.

Ventura County law enforcement officials have said they are concerned about increased gang activity in the county, particularly in Oxnard. However, Oxnard police have repeatedly downplayed the city’s gang problem, saying youth gangs that roam the city are different from the hard-core urban gangs that rule Los Angeles neighborhoods.

“Oxnard hasn’t really been gang-involved,” Phillips said. “We have been very fortunate that we haven’t had the gang problems that L.A. has.”

Shootings in Oxnard average about 10 a year and are down compared to last year, said Phillips, although he could not provide statistics.

Saturday, stores bordering the parking lot were closed for two hours while police questioned witnesses after the shooting. As retailers resumed business Sunday, shops were abuzz with news of the shooting.

“When they shot at that guy, I didn’t think it was serious,” said Rodrigo de la Paz, owner of Rodrigo’s Market. De la Paz said he was serving customers when he heard four shots ring out and “saw the guy fall down right there in the corner outside.”

Another sales clerk said Sunday that the drive-by shooting and subsequent fight disrupted the shopping center and alarmed customers, but it was business as usual afterward. “I just continued with my job,” he said. “It’s all you can do.”