Bullet Kills 19-Year-Old on New Year’s

STANTON —  A 19-year-old man lay dead with a bullet in his head just minutes after midnight Wednesday in what Sheriff’s Department officials and neighbors say may have been related to stray gunfire from New Year’s Eve revelry.

Andrew Gabriel Vasquez of Stanton was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head in the 7000 block of Santa Gertrudes Avenue, Sheriff’s Lt. Lynn Nehring said. Investigators were working the case as a homicide late Wednesday but said it remained unclear whether the shooting was accidental.

Neighbors, however, said Vasquez fell to the ground just after a volley of gunfire rang in the new year on the street corner, a hangout for a local gang.

One neighbor, a 13-year-old, said sheriff’s deputies had combed the street just an hour before the death, patting down people on the corner for guns in anticipation of midnight revelry.

Right before midnight, the youth said, a car pulled up with a trunkload of guns and the young men who make the corner their hangout pulled them out for the traditional New Year’s volley.

“We always keep the kids in on New Year’s,” he said of the yearly incidents.

The 13-year-old had been watching a movie at his brother’s house when he heard the burst of gunfire at midnight, then saw a group of young men running away from Vasquez’s body.

According to neighbors, investigators at the scene said they were looking into the possibilities that Vasquez was killed by someone else’s bullet, his own, or one that ricocheted off a bulletproof street lamp. Gang members often try to shoot out the street lamps, residents said.

Nehring would say only that the investigation is continuing.

Residents of the neighborhood described Vasquez as a joker who loved music, hanging out with friends and smoking cigarettes.

“He was really funny,” the 13-year-old witness said. “He was real nice and he would mind his own business.”

Late Wednesday, neighbors gathered around a makeshift shrine set up in Vasquez’s honor at a graffiti-scarred fire hydrant where he fell. Votive candles, roses and carnations in kitchen jars, and a card etched “With Loving Memories” adorned the site. Friends had also left a full pack of Vasquez’s favorite brand of cigarettes and an empty bottle of tequila in his honor.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the homicide detail at (714) 647-7044 during regular business hours, or (714) 834-7370 at all other times.