4 Held as Man Is Slain, Deputy Hurt in Ventura County

A crime rampage that moved across about 15 miles and through three Ventura County communities early Sunday left a Moorpark man dead of gunshot wounds, a sheriff’s deputy seriously injured in a car crash and four alleged Camarillo gang members in jail.

The group of four or five youths, aged 17 to 20, began the rampage at 12:30 a.m. when they tried to steal food and threw beer bottles inside 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 in the driver’s seat of his white Mustang, which was sitting at a stoplight at a Moorpark intersection, when he was shot in the head, Mendoza said.

“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 injured deputy, whose name was not released, was in stable condition at an Oxnard hospital with multiple broken bones after his patrol car crashed en route to help other officers chase the assailants. His partner suffered a broken arm.

“The air bags in the car saved their lives,” Mendoza said.

Four Camarillo youths were arrested on suspicion of murder and armed robbery.