Gang members at center of slaying investigations in San Bernardino, Redlands

Gang members at center of slaying investigations in San Bernardino, Redlands Inland News PE.com Southern California News News for Inland Southern California

By PAUL LAROCCOThe Press-Enterprise

Gangs were linked Monday to two weekend slayings in Redlands and San Bernardino -- one resulting in murder charges against a teenager and the other triggered by a transient's dog.

Timothy John Vargas Jr., 16, a suspected gang member, was charged as an adult but remained at large after the fatal shooting of a parolee outside his San Bernardino apartment.

Leonard James Scott, 23, was out of prison for less than three weeks when he and another man were struck by shotgun fire on Saturday, prosecutors allege. Scott died at a hospital and Arturo Garcia, 22, was wounded.

The East 18th Street killing was San Bernardino's 14th this year.

A fatal shooting Saturday at Redlands' Jennie Davis Park was that city's first killing in 18 months.
Ricky Dean Davis, 48, was gunned down at 1:30 p.m. after arguing with two documented Rialto gang members. The suspects thought Davis' dog had gotten too close to one of the men's infant son in a stroller, said Redlands police Chief Jim Bueermann.

The suspects, brothers who recently moved to Redlands, are suspected of walking home, dropping off the boy and returning to the park with a shotgun.

"This is the problem with the gang lifestyle," Bueermann said Monday. "That subculture resorting to violence to handle disputes is part and parcel with how they view the world."

Peter Soto, who will turn 21 Wednesday, and Paul Soto, 18, were arrested at their apartment a quarter-mile from the park three hours after the shooting.

The quick arrests were aided in part by an officer who noted their descriptions during a routine patrol of the park before the shootings, Bueermann said. They matched with a witness' account of a man running from the park to the nearby apartment.

Davis was believed to be transient who spent time at the park. The shooting happened less than two hours before a church was to serve meals to the needy there.

"This was really a shock to our volunteers," said Sharon Callon-Schwartz, director of pastoral services for Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church.

The church moved its program to a nearby shelter on Saturday and served the homeless as well as the police officers investigating the killing.

In San Bernardino on Saturday, a police SWAT team surrounded Vargas' apartment near Sepulveda Avenue. The shotgun used to kill Scott was recovered but the suspect was not arrested.
Investigators said it was unclear what the suspect and victims, also suspected gang members, were fighting about.

"Nobody seems to know," said San Bernardino police Lt. Brian Boom.

Scott, who lived a block north of where he was shot, was released from state prison April 14, according to state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records. He had been sentenced to 16 months in prison for a conviction in 2006 for receiving stolen property.

Anyone with information on Vargas' whereabouts is asked to call Detective Mike Vasilis at 909-384-5636 or the department's anonymous tip line at 909-384-5656.