Suspect in Youth’s Shooting Gives Up in Oceanside

A 25-year-old Oceanside man was arrested Thursday night in connection with the shooting of a 17-year-old while he slept earlier this week, police said.

Santiago Rivas Suarez, 25, who is unemployed and a “documented gang member,” voluntarily walked into the Oceanside Police Station on Thursday and was arrested in the attempted murder early Monday of John Diaz, police said.

Despite the arrest, police say the investigation is continuing and would not say if there were accomplices or if a weapon has been recovered.

“We are doing a lot of interviews with a lot of different people. This case is continuing, and it’s not over yet,” said Sgt. Bill Krunglevich.

Suarez lived in the area where the shooting occurred, Krunglevich said.

Diaz, who was in fair condition at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla on Friday, was shot once in the heart.

Diaz had been sleeping in his bedroom in his family’s home in the 5000 block of Macario Drive in Oceanside. His younger brother and sister were asleep in the same room but were unharmed.

Diaz’s family said that he had had four confrontations in the last six months with members of a local gang who wanted him to join.

Police have said “two gang factions are kind of warring in that area,” and that the neighborhood has been “riddled with gang activity” recently.

Diaz, who was being held at the County Jail in Vista without bail, is scheduled to be arraigned in Municipal Court on Monday, Krunglevich said.