Store Slaying Suspect Dies in Standoff

After a five-hour standoff, a Ventura special tactics officer shot and killed a 25-year-old man early Sunday who was wanted in connection with the fatal shooting last month of an Avenue grocery store clerk.

Alfonso Acosta Delgado Jr., 25, was pronounced dead shortly after the 2 a.m. shooting, which occurred in a brushy area near the railroad tracks behind his grandmother’s Channel Drive home. Delgado had barricaded himself in the garage behind the house hours earlier, police said.

Delgado was shot once after he jumped a fence behind the garage and attempted to flee, said Ventura Police Lt. Carl Handy. He was carrying a German-made assault rifle as he made his way through bushes near the tracks, Handy said. It was unclear if Delgado had pointed the rifle at SWAT officers.

“We considered him to be a threat,” Handy said. “He’s armed and he’s wanted. . . . You have a guy with a high-powered rifle [who] has killed somebody [who] is walking in an area with officers and carrying a weapon.”

The shooting followed a standoff with police that began after 9 p.m. Saturday, forcing the evacuation of dozens of Channel Drive residents. Some arrived home to find heavily armed SWAT officers taking up positions in their yards.

“It was just like a movie,” said Jennifer Penson, who was visiting a friend across the street from the house where Delgado was staying. “There was so much movement with all the police.”

Delgado died from a single gunshot wound to the head, authorities said. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

“I am in shock,” said Delgado’s grandmother, Virginia Delgado, 71. “I am sick. He was a good boy. I didn’t see him for a long time, but I am the type that stays away from everything. If [grandchildren] come, then they are all welcome.”’

Alfonso Delgado was wanted in connection with the shooting death of Alejandro Alvarez, a 35-year-old husband and father who was killed during a robbery attempt last month at the Central Market on Ventura Avenue, where he had worked for more than a year.

Two co-owners of the store were seriously wounded in the afternoon attack on April 6. Employees working at the market Sunday said Mohan Singh and his brother, Balbir, both of Ventura, are still recovering from their wounds and have not returned to work.

A second suspect in the market shootings, whom authorities have declined to identify, is in custody on unrelated narcotics charges. He has not been charged in connection with Alvarez’s death, Handy said.

Police allege that Delgado and the other man entered the market wearing masks and demanded money. Before Alvarez and the two co-owners could comply, the gunmen opened fire, investigators said. The assailants fled without taking any money, and Alvarez staggered out the front door of the market and collapsed in the parking lot.

On April 17, police identified Delgado as a suspect and a warrant was issued for his arrest on suspicion of murder.

Handy said officers were notified Friday that Delgado was at the Channel Drive residence, and they quickly set up surveillance. On Saturday, two eight-member SWAT teams and nearly two dozen additional officers arrived at the scene after police received a call from Delgado’s relatives confirming that he was there.

Neighbors said they had noticed Delgado coming and going from the house in recent weeks.

“He had been staying there. I saw him on the sidewalk,” said Margaret Poynter, who lives across the street.

But Delgado’s cousin, Louis Jimenez, said he hadn’t seen Delgado in months.

Jimenez, a construction worker who lives in the house with his mother, grandmother and another cousin, said Delgado had all but disappeared in the past year. The family was in a daze from Delgado’s death and the crime he is suspected of committing, Jimenez said. “We were saying we were never going to see him again” after police named Delgado as a suspect, Jimenez said.

Meanwhile, the mother of the slain grocery clerk reacted with mixed emotions upon hearing of Delgado’s death.

“It will not bring my son back,” Concepcion Alvarez said as her family prepared for an afternoon Mother’s Day barbecue. “But at least he is not going to make other mothers suffer.”

At the market where Alvarez worked, employees said they’ll finally be able to give some answers to the daily questions from customers about the shooting.

“People are always asking me if they caught the people,” said Aldo Vasquez. “When they ask again I’ll be able to say they got the guy.”