San Clemente Merchants Nervous in Wake of Shooting

Nowhere is closer to the small-town heart of San Clemente than the intersection of Ola Vista and Avenida del Mar, where 18-year-old Jose Zarate Chavez was shot to death this week in a brazen early evening confrontation between two carloads of reputed gang members.

Law enforcement authorities said Wednesday that Chavez’s death might have been a random act and that no suspects are yet in custody. But some local merchants are fretting over what might come next. The shooting occurred at 8:30 p.m. Monday while shoppers still walked along the downtown streets.

“Some merchants, I’m sure, will be a little worried about staying open late at night, which is something we have encouraged them to do,” said Jim Schroeder, owner of the Paperback Exchange and president of the 117-member Downtown Business Assn.

Chavez, a San Clemente resident who was a student at San Clemente High School last year, was with three friends in a car that pulled up next to a light-blue Mercedes-Benz with five male occupants, authorities said.

Gang affiliations were declared, shots were fired, and Chavez was later pronounced dead at nearby Samaritan Medical Center, authorities said.

Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson would not characterize the shooting as a skirmish between San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano gangs known to be at odds with each other. “I don’t know if this was a continuation of something else or just a random act,” Wilkerson said Wednesday. “I don’t think it takes a lot to lead up to a shooting with a lot of these folks.”

Steve Apodaca, the city’s first Latino City Council member, said it is frightening that the shooting occurred downtown, but he believes it to be a random act of violence.

“This does drive home the fact that something like this can occur anyplace, at any time,” Apodaca said. “It is tragic to see a young life snuffed away like this. But this strengthens our resolve to throw as many resources as we can to track down these gangs, not just in San Clemente but in the surrounding areas. They seem to feed on each other.”

In the meantime, merchants hope that no more gun battles disrupt the serenity of the quaint San Clemente downtown.

“What can you do about these gangs?” said Glenn Burton, manager of Cornet, a resilient five-and-dime store that has been situated for more than 40 years at the corner where the shooting took place. “Every city has gangs now. But we think this shooting was just a fluke.”