UPDATE, MAY 18, 9:45 A.M.: Santa Ana police have identified the man who was fatally shot in the parking lot of Taqueria Zamora Sunday night as Sergio Maldonado, 32, of Santa Ana.
And cops believe Arnie Zavala, a 20-year-old Santa Ana man who died in a San Diego hospital Monday night, was also shot outside the South Main Street restaurant the night before.
Both men are suspected of being gang rivals involved in a clash inside and outside Taqueria Zamora.
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An argument between members of two gangs broke out inside the restaurant before spilling outside, according to police, who say 'bangers pulled out handguns and started firing at one another.
The response to a call of shots fired sent officers to the taqueria at 3121 S. Main St., where they found Maldonado. He later died at a local hospital.
But police investigators determined at the scene that a second man had been shot. The mystery was solved when they got a call from the San Diego hospital that treated Zavala. Police believe he was making a run for a hospital in Mexico. He obviously came up short.
While saying Maldonado and Zavala belonged to different gangs, police were unsure if they shot one another. A detail like that could be revealed through the department's gang homicide reward program, which is offering up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of murder suspects.
Call 714.245.8648 if you like cash for what you know about this.
ORIGINAL POST, MAY 16, 10:32 A.M.: Police received a call of gunfire around 8 p.m. in the 3100 block of South Main Street in Santa Ana.
Cops and paramedics arrived to find a man suffering from gunshot wounds in the parking lot of Taqueria Zamora, 3121 S. Main St.
The man was rushed to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds.
Details are sketchy. The shooting stemmed from some kind of fight in the
parking lot. The man's age and identity have not yet been released by police. Neither have no details on a suspect or suspects.
If you saw anything, call Santa Ana police at 714.245.8648.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.