A Homicide Bureau with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Wednesday a second suspect has been arrested in Santa Clarita in connection with the fatal shooting June 17 outside Valencia Liquor.
An investigator who was at the scene said surveillance footage helped detectives identify two people as responsible for the murder of 31-year-old Fernando Bernabe, who died from a gunshot wound to the chest around 11 p.m. in the store’s parking lot.
Lt. Mike Modica of the Homicide Bureau said Wednesday both are in custody.
Jose Roberto Corona, a 29-year-old Valencia man who listed his occupation as a barber, was arrested Friday morning, then released at 8:08 p.m. Sunday, according to LASD custody records available online. Those records also indicate he was booked again just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday, both times on suspicion of murder.
Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station patrol deputies also arrested Omar Garcia Ramirez, 24, of Santa Clarita, on suspicion of murder for the shooting.
Modica said he was not aware of a confrontation prior to the shooting, and also confirmed that both Bernabe and Garcia Ramirez were suspected gang members, but he was not sure as to Corona’s status as of this story’s publication.
He said the motive behind the shooting was believed to be gang-related.
Both are listed as co-defendants, according to L.A. County District Attorney’s Office records available online, which state both are due back in court July 24, which would likely be for scheduling purposes.
Garcia Ramirez, who was arrested June 26, is charged with: one count of murder; a special allegation that he used a firearm; a rule of court violation that he had one or more serious violent felony convictions in his past; two weapons charges connected to his previous convictions; and a felony evading arrest charge from a June 20 encounter with law enforcement.
Garcia Ramirez is being held without bail at North County Correctional Facility in Castaic. Corona is being charged with one count, first-degree murder, and being held without bail at Men’s Central Jail in Downtown Los Angeles.
There were actually two shootings June 17 in that neighborhood, which has seen an uptick in violence over the past 18 months.
Earlier that evening a group of teenagers fired a gun at a house on Walnut Street and then were seen running from the area. A very similar report was given for the same day a week earlier.
A woman called 911 on July 4 to say she was involved in a shooting, which ultimately was traced back to the same area, the 25000 block of Walnut Street, where a man was reported to have been shot, too.
On Monday, witnesses reported hearing five to seven gunshots from nearby Valle Del Oro, followed by a group seen running away from where the shots were reported. No injuries were reported in that incident, which is under investigation by the SCV Sheriff’s Station’s Juvenile and Gangs Team.
