SANTA ANA : Police Seek Clues in Fatal Shooting

Police investigators are seeking clues in the death of a 20-year-old Santa Ana man who was fatally shot early Monday.

Jose Guadalupe Sanchez was pronounced dead on arrival at UCI Medical Center in Orange with a single gunshot wound to his chest, said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton. No witnesses have come forward and there are few other clues in the slaying, he said.

“We don’t even know if it was a drive-by (shooting) or somebody walked up to this guy,” he said.

Helton said that at 3 a.m., police dispatchers received a report of gunfire from residents in the 1900 block of West Myrtle Street, but when they arrived at the scene they found “nothing out of the ordinary.”

While police were at the scene, another dispatcher received a call from UCI Medical Center officials, who reported that emergency room personnel had a man who was mortally wounded.

When police got to the hospital, they found several of Guadalupe’s friends, who told investigators they had heard gunshots and then found Guadalupe lying on the ground. They rushed him to the hospital but were too late to save his life.

Helton said the friends offered little information and claimed not to have not seen anything.

Guadalupe did not appear to be a member of any of Santa Ana’s street gangs, but Helton said investigators were not ruling out the possibility that he was shot by gang members. Investigators were continuing to try to determine a motive.

“It could have been an attempted robbery or anything else,” Helton said.