Police released a sketch Friday afternoon of the man they believe walked into a quiet downtown bar Tuesday night and shot a married man with two children in the head at point blank range.
Gilroy police are still searching for the unknown man who killed 47-year-old Andres Cebreros Tuesday night as he sat inside the Aloha Club sipping water and casually playing pool, according to Steven Hernandez, the son of the club’s owner who said he was outside the bar’s light peach-colored building at 7287 Monterey St. during the execution-style shooting. Cebreros, who worked in an unspecified auto body shop, had a wife, an 8-year-old son and a 5-year-old girl, Sgt. Chad Gallicinao said. He also had family in Southern California and Mexico, Gallicinao said.
Police Chief Denise Turner suspected the “brazen” attack, which does not appear gang-related, could have occurred anywhere the victim happened to be that night, so there is no cause to crack down on bars and restaurants already abiding by strict serving standards, she said.
“This is not a bar-related issue. It’s not even an alochol-related issue. The suspect targeted one individual, and that person wasn’t even drinking,” Turner said. “This is also different than gang-related crimes because it appeared to be planned out, and I suspect no matter where (Cebreros) was at the time, this person would’ve found him.”
Cebreros’s death cannot be compared to the March 2008 stabbing death of 26-year-old Juan DeDios Arvizu Cabrera, who died in his brother’s arms outside the Rio Nilo nightclub two blocks north. That allegedly gang-related slaying occurred after a long night of drinking, and alcohol often contributes to fist fights in the area that police regularly respond to during pre-dawn weekend hours. But Turner, Hernandez and Mayor Al Pinheiro all agreed this was different.
“Somebody had a personal vendetta against this guy,” Hernandez said. “This could’ve happened at Wal-Mart, it could’ve happened here,” he added, pointing at the concrete outside the juice shop next door to the club.
Hernandez’ mother and the club’s owner, Doris Ortiz, stopped by the bar to drop off some supplies about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, she said.
“It was quiet last night,” Ortiz said the morning after the shooting. “It’s a pretty regular clientele.”
About an hour later, at 8:36 p.m., police received a call from an Aloha Club employee that a man had been shot, Sgt. Jim Gillio said. About a “half-dozen people” were inside when the unknown shooter walked up to Cebreros, who had been going to the bar “for a while,” and shot him at close range without a word, Hernandez said. The man then fled out the back of the bar, and police show up three minutes later to find Cebreros dead, Gillio said.
Lillian Crocker was in her home on Seventh Street next door to Baha Burgers during the shooting, but the elderly woman who enjoys crosswords and has lived there her whole life said she was either watching basketball on television or talking and heard nothing.
“Jiminy Cricket … Jiminy Cricket,” she repeated with wide eyes and her hand held over her mouth Wednesday morning. “My gosh, what’s wrong with people these days? My gosh.”
Police expect to release another sketch Saturday as officers hear from more witnesses, Sgt. Chad Gallicinao said.
A sketch is the best bet at this point without any security camera footage of the suspect. Looking toward the future, though, the police department recently secured more than $16,000 in federal grant money to purchase surveillance equipment it will install in covert locations, and last month about 25 businesses throughout the city met with officers to discuss video technology and logistics they hope will curb not only violence, but loitering, graffiti, drug use and public urination.
The department does not have money to set up a satellite police office downtown and after staff-straining budget cuts, Turner has redeployed an officer from solely downtown patrols to city-wide canvassing. To help fill the vacuum, though, volunteers walking in pairs have been patrolling the downtown and reporting suspicious behavior during daylight hours for the past three months, “but they’re not comfortable being out there after dark, and I really don’t want them being there after dark,” Turner said. Instead, night shift officers regularly walk through downtown bars during peak revelry hours to make sure nobody’s “over-served,” Turner said.
All the extra effort in the world probably would not have prevented Cebreros brutal death, though, Mayor Pinheiro said.
“We could’ve had 100 extra police officers and that doesn’t mean this wouldn’t have happened,” Pinheiro said. “My God, this is just something you don’t expect to happen in a small community, and I’m sorry it happened in Gilroy – I’m sorry it happened period – but then I put the other hat on and ask, ‘What can the community do?'”
Immediately inside the club runs a long, narrow, worn wooden bar with stools lined along the left side. The scene attracts a mostly male crowd that plays pool, sits or picks songs on the jukebox in the larger back area illuminated by a couple of sky lights. Perched above the end of the bar is an old television, which often shows soccer matches in Spanish.
The area outside the club was quiet Wednesday morning, with nearby A1 Cuts, Garcia’s Club and Restaurant, and Baha Burgers closed. Employees and customers at the juice stand and grocery store, both on the same side of the same block, and people waiting at the CalTrain station across Monterey Street had not heard about the shooting.
Farther downtown, business employees and customers were similarly unaware of the previous night’s events. Some had heard sirens, but did not know any details. Activity continued at its typical moderate pace and Councilman Bob Dillon believed that the incident, provided police do not find that it was gang-related, will not change that.
“These things are going to happen and thankfully it’s seldom enough,” he said.
The shooting death is the first slaying of 2009. Last year, there were three deaths – two by shooting and one by stabbing – and the previous year there was one gruesome stabbing death in the downtown.
“I think it’s too few to call a trend,” Dillon said. “It makes our stats look bad but it’s too few.”
Dillon did not expect any change in police policy following the incident.
“I don’t know how any active policing can stop that kind of thing,” he said.
Killings in Gilroy in the past two years
Osiris Quintero Munoz is about to go on trial murder in the stabbing death of 26-year-old Juan DeDios Arvizu Cabrera, who died outside the Rio Nilo bar and nightclub in downtown the morning of March 16, 2008. He will next appear in court 9 a.m. May 7.
In the afternoon of Sept. 29, 2008, Francisco Rodriguez Lopez, 19, was shot and killed while driving around north Gilroy. Someone in a separate car – carrying an unknown number of suspects – fired a pistol into the vehicle Lopez was traveling in. Lopez was hit before the unknown driver of the car he was in took him to a nearby hospital, where he died shortly thereafter.
In the final killing of 2008, 18-year-old Larry Martinez was shot and killed just a block from the Gilroy Police Department in what appeared to be a gang strike in early November. The three men who approached Martinez before the shooting have not yet been identified by police.
In 2007, the only slaying was the gruesome stabbing death of a middle age Gilroyan named Juan Lugo. Lugo was found in the alley behind La Colonia Latina, 7261 Monterey St., his wallet and bike left with his body.
