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Street Killing Clues Elusive

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Times Staff Writers

Riverside police are struggling to find a suspect or motive for the daytime shooting death of an Orange County businessman outside the Riverside Public Utilities office this week.

Mostafa Shirazi, 51, was gunned down shortly before 11 a.m. Monday as he left the office, on 5th Street in downtown Riverside, a block from the historic Mission Inn.

Witnesses said a man in his 30s walked up to Shirazi and shot him without saying a word, then ran to a gray pickup truck nearby and sped away with another man.

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“We’re not aware of any motive; there’s no indication it was robbery,” Riverside police spokesman Phil Fernandez said. “We’re looking at all aspects of [Shirazi’s] background.”

Shirazi, a married father of four from Yorba Linda, told his employees Monday morning that he would be paying utility bills for two of his Riverside-based board and care homes.

“He had not an enemy in the world,” Shirazi’s son Shawn said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “He was a man of impeccable honesty, so it’s out of left field for this to happen.”

Shawn Shirazi, 23, said his father could have been mistaken for someone else.

“I can’t imagine this kind of thing happening to him,” he said. “He was the wrong person. There was no reason for it to happen.”

Police haven’t found the getaway vehicle and said they don’t have enough of a description of the perpetrator to produce a composite sketch, Fernandez said.

It was the city’s sixth homicide this year, Fernandez said.

“The way it was carried out was absolutely unique,” he said, noting that the crime was committed in daylight in front of witnesses.

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Shirazi owned Riverside board and care facilities Majesty Village and Hacienda Village, providing 140 beds for mentally disabled people ages 18 to 59, said Hacienda Village administrator Alex Tagaro. Shirazi also owned Chapman Manor, a residential facility for seniors in Fullerton, Tagaro said.

“Friends who were in this business got him into it,” Tagaro said. “There are lots of challenges in this type of work; it requires lots of patience. But he had it. I have worked with him here since 1998, and I have never heard him raise his voice. He was a very good friend to me, and to all of the members of my family.”

Shawn Shirazi said his father was in a good mood when they last talked on the phone, Sunday evening. Shawn was in New York and his father and family were at their Yorba Linda home, celebrating his brother’s 17th birthday.

The father was also upbeat because a messy business dispute with his ex-wife, a Riverside County dentist, was being finalized, his son said. He married his current wife, Yolany, several years ago, the son said. The couple had a son, now 8 months old.

Riverside police ask that anyone with information on the shooting call them at (951) 320-8027 or (951) 320-8049.

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