Oxnard Man Fatally Shot on Bicycle

A 20-year-old Oxnard man riding his bicycle home from work was shot and killed less than a block from the apartment he shared with his mother and younger brother.

Israel Mendez was shot at close range in the face and chest shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday in the 700 block of G Street, officials said. He was pronounced dead a short time later at St. John’s Regional Medical Center.

Witnesses were unable to give detectives a clear description of an assailant.

Mendez’s brother, Juan, 16, said he wasn’t surprised his sibling was shot. He said Israel had been stabbed at a party earlier this year and made no secret of his gang affiliation. He even had the name of a local gang tattooed prominently on his chest.

“I never liked it that he was in a gang,” Juan Mendez said. “We told him a lot of times it was bad, but he never listened.”

It was unknown if the shooting was gang-related, said Cmdr. Rafael Nieves of the Oxnard Police Department.

Israel Mendez’s death marked the fourth homicide in the city this year, the same number as last year at this time, police said.

Several fatal shootings last fall sparked community outrage and led to a special task force, resulting in the arrests of several suspected gang members on numerous charges, including murder.

According to his brother, Israel Mendez was on his way home from his job at a Quizno’s sandwich shop on Telephone Road in Ventura at the time of the shooting.

Several witnesses living in the two-story apartment complex where the shooting occurred said they heard six to eight shots just after 10 p.m.

Cecilia Lopez was watching television in the home she shares with her four young children when the gunfire occurred. Lopez said she heard four shots.

She said she looked out her front window and saw Mendez lying on the grass a few feet away, bleeding.

“I want to move as far away from here as possible,” said Lopez, who has three sons and a daughter, the oldest of whom is 12. “The kids are always playing here, and any time they could get shot.”

Less than 12 hours after the shooting, friends and neighbors had assembled a small memorial on the patch of grass where Mendez was shot. Four young men who said they were friends of Mendez stopped briefly at the memorial, consisting of a crucifix and bouquets of roses.

A woman who identified herself only as Leticia poured a bucket of water on the grass to wash away dried blood.

“This is not the first time this has happened here,” she said. “I’m really scared because I have a son who just turned 15. It’s so dangerous because so many kids around here are in gangs.”