Moorpark Motorist, 25, Slain During Crime Spree : Violence: Four alleged gang members, ages 17 to 20, are arrested after rampage that began in Camarillo. Two officers are hurt during pursuit.

A murderous and random crime spree that spread through three Ventura County communities early Sunday left a Moorpark man dead of a gunshot wound, a sheriff’s deputy seriously injured in a car crash and four alleged Camarillo gang members in jail.

It was the first gang-related homicide in Moorpark in more than three years, authorities said.

The group of four or possibly five males, ages 17 to 20, began the rampage at 12:30 a.m. when they attempted to steal food from a Taco Bell in Camarillo, then shot up a nearby home, robbed a man at a pay phone in Somis and shot to death a 25-year-old man in Moorpark as he and a friend drove home after work, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Rodney Mendoza.

Jesus Zamudio Manjarrez, 25, was shot in the head while sitting in the driver’s seat of his car at a stoplight at a Moorpark intersection, Mendoza said.

Deputies knew of no connection between the victim and his assailants.

“There was no motive at all to the shooting,” Mendoza said. “The victim was not a gang member. The passenger was not a gang member. This was a random act of violence.”

The seriously injured deputy, whose name was not released, was in stable condition at an Oxnard hospital with multiple broken bones, injuries he sustained in a single-car crash as he and a partner sped to the aid of other officers chasing the suspect car. His partner suffered a broken arm.

Four Camarillo youths were arrested on suspicion of murder and armed robbery. Police allege that 20-year-old Mike Castro pulled the trigger to kill Manjarrez and that he also shot into the Camarillo home. Art Contreras, 18, who was already on probation for robbery, and Ceaser Aldana, 18, were being held with Castro at Ventura County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.

A 17-year-old boy was being held at Clifton Tatum Center juvenile facility in Ventura.

Authorities confiscated a handgun and impounded a gray sedan.

The crime spree began about 12:30 a.m. at the Taco Bell on Daily Drive in Camarillo. Police said the four youths driving a gray sedan ordered food they could not pay for at the restaurant’s drive-through window.

When the manager would not give them the food, they went into the restaurant and began throwing beer bottles, authorities said. No one was injured and the group left without the food.

While the officers were investigating the Taco Bell incident, Camarillo police received reports of shots fired at a home in the 800 block of Calle la Sombra, Mendoza said.

Authorities said they did not know if the four or five shots had caused property damage or whether the residents knew the suspects. No one was injured in the drive-by shooting.

The group then allegedly headed northeast to Somis, where they used a gun to rob a Ventura County man using a pay phone outside the Somis Market. When the man said he had no money, the group took a book from him and left, authorities said.

The group then continued their marauding, heading east to Moorpark. There, Manjarrez and a friend were driving home after finishing their shifts at the Edwards Theatre Cinema in Simi Valley.

The pair were stopped at the intersection of Spring and High streets in Moorpark when the Camarillo group allegedly pulled up next to them from another corner so that the drivers’ windows were adjacent to one another, Mendoza said.

One of the suspects yelled out to Manjarrez, asking him where he was from, a witness told police. Manjarrez rolled down his window. A passenger then got out of the back seat of the sedan and shot Manjarrez through the window with a handgun, Mendoza said.

The group left in the car and Manjarrez’s car rolled into the intersection and came to a stop, Mendoza said. Manjarrez’s companion, another Moorpark man, was not hurt.

Manjarrez was pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound to the head at Simi Valley Hospital at 1:55 a.m., said Dale Zentzis, Ventura County deputy coroner’s investigator.

Manjarrez had lived in Ventura County for more than a year and worked at a local carwash as well as the theater, Zentzis said. Manjarrez’s parents and three brothers live in Mexico City, Zentzis said.

“He was a hard-working young man,” he said.

Sheriff’s deputies later spotted and chased a car heading toward Camarillo on Santa Rosa Road. The brief pursuit ended at Oak Canyon Road and Saddleback Way, where police arrested two members of the group inside the car and two others were arrested after police chased them on foot.

Police were searching for a possible fifth suspect.

A sheriff’s deputy on his way with a partner to aid in the chase sustained two broken legs, a broken knee and a broken pelvis when their car slammed into a telephone pole on Lewis Road, north of Las Posas.

He was airlifted to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard where he was in stable condition Sunday. His partner was treated for a broken arm and released at St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo.

“The air bags in the car saved their lives,” Mendoza said. Authorities did not release the names of the deputies.

Investigators said the suspects did not make gang signs or yell slogans, but that the four arrested were believed to be affiliated because of past behavior.

Alcohol was probably involved in the incident, Mendoza said, because the suspects threw beer bottles. But the four men arrested did not appear to be heavily intoxicated or using other drugs, he said.

Their arraignment is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Authorities expressed a sense of disbelief that such a crime spree could happen in Ventura County.

“Gang members throw bottles because they can’t get food and then shoot up a house, rob someone and then commit murder,” Mendoza said. “That just doesn’t happen.”