Gang Fight’s Innocent Victim Mourned

The Bernardino household was somber Sunday as family members lighted six candles in memory of Zenon Bernardino, a mute 57-year-old man killed while hunting cans and glass for recycling by a bullet fired in a gang fight.

The death of Bernardino, whom relatives described as peaceful and shy, stunned the family.

“He didn’t deserve this,” said his sister, Adela Bernardino, 55. “He never harmed anybody. Every day he would go out and find his cans and he would always come back home.”

The shooting occurred Saturday a block from the Bernardinos’ home. Family members said they had never before experienced any problems with gangs in their neighborhood, where they have lived for two years. Zenon Bernardino had moved to the United States from Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico, with his sister 10 years ago.

Zenon Bernardino was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Santa Ana police. Returning home after visiting a nearby junkyard where he sold aluminum cans, he had been walking north on Euclid Street near West 5th Street when he was struck on the left side.

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According to authorities, several bullet holes were discovered in the wall of the First Samoan Congregational Christian Church just behind the spot where Bernardino was found.

At the Mercado La Plaza market across the street from the church, clerk Felipe Miranda said the sounds of gunfire are common in the area.

“We have quite a bit of problems with gangs,” said Miranda, who has worked at the market for six years and remembers Bernardino as a friendly man who always smiled when he came into the market. “That poor man, he was just walking along, just picking up his cans.”

Family members want the shooters to be found, but they are not hopeful.

“I don’t even know what to think, this is so unexpected,” said his niece, Christina Ortiz, as she finished wiping the table where candles, held in glass with depictions of Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe, burned. “It is important that they catch them, but there are hundreds of people who die and nothing [regarding their deaths] is ever resolved.”

Adela Bernardino expressed anger at the shooters for taking their conflict to the streets, rather than keeping it in private where they could only hurt each other.

“If they want to kill each other, then let them kill each other face to face,” she said. “Today, they kill my brother, tomorrow they may kill a child or a woman. I hope [the killers] are caught and punished for killing innocent people.”