Friday night street shooting takes life of Simi Valley teen
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

A late night shooting left a Simi Valley teenager dead last Friday- and investigators said there are few clues as to the identity or motive of the killer.

Luis Torres, 18, was found by Simi Valley police officers at 11:14 p.m. at the southwest corner of Fourth Street and Ashland Avenue. Officers were responding to calls of several shots being fired.

Torres was pronounced dead at the scene by Ventura County Fire and American Medical Response personnel. The Ventura County Medical Examiner's office later determined that Torres died of a single gunshot wound to the chest fired at close range.

It is the second homicide in Simi Valley in the last four months and the first of the new year. Walter Vela, 24, a clerk at a Thousand Oaks law firm and a Royal High graduate, was killed by gunfire Sept. 24 on Sebring Avenue.

According to police reports, witnesses said they saw two carloads of people in the area of Third Street and Ashland Avenue before they heard the shots. The group appeared to be socializing and not arguing, the police said.

Moments later, sounds of gunfire resonated through the area of singlefamily homes and apartments.

Police said that after the shots were fired people quickly got into their cars and left the area.

The cars were described as compacts, one was dark colored and the other white.

According to Sgt. David Livingstone, police have no suspects and have made no arrests.

Still, Simi detectives have been working hard on the case, he said, trying to locate possible witnesses and "turn over rocks."

"They have been working on this pretty much on a nonstop basis. These kinds of investigations take time, and like any investigation, we don't want to make mistakes," Livingstone said.

As in the Vela case, solving the Torres shooting may come down to whether or not police can find an eyewitness willing to come forward to identify the s h o o t e r , Livingstone said.

"In a lot of cases, the person or persons who witnessed the shooting may not want to talk because they're intimidated," he said. "But we really rely on the public in cases like this. That's why as soon as we have any additional information on the suspect we will release it."

Police are tight-lipped about w h e t h e r they think the shooting was g a n g r e lated. "We want to be really careful what we call a g a n g r e lated homicide," Livingstone said.

"We don't want to call it that until we have eye witnesses saying 'this person said that or this person was wearing this.'"

Though all slayings are tragedies, Livingstone said, the situation always seems worse when the victim is young, as was the case with 18-year-old Torres.

"It's just so senseless when you see a victim who is so young and has their whole life in front of them," he said.

Police asked anyone with information to contact Simi Valley detectives at (805) 583-6950.