Arrest in shooting that interrupted Greenfield Police Explorers program

UPDATE 7/9/2015: Greenfield police made an arrest in an alleged gang shooting of Raul Morales on Oak St. in Greenfield last month.

Investigators located Joel Perez and took him into custody. They also searched his home and found a sawed off shotgun, five rifles, ammunition and drugs.

Perez was booked into Monterey County Jail on attempted murder and other charges.

6/23/2015:

A shooting in Greenfield closed down streets in the area for several hours Monday evening as investigators collected evidence. NewsChannel 5 was at the scene while a crime prevention program had to be put on hold because of the incident.

The shooting happened just as the Greenfield Explorer program meeting was about to get underway, and all resources had to be diverted to the investigation instead.

“As of right now it’s looking promising, he was talking when officers arrived when medics arrived still talking still conscious,” Greenfield Police said.

The shooting happened on Oak and 10th street at about 4:15 Monday. Greenfield police said the man was lying on the ground behind a residence.

“Most certainly could have been gang related, like i said right now we don’t have a whole lot of leads,” Greenfield Police Chief Adele Frese said.

Officers had help though as South County agencies including sheriff deputies, Soledad and King City police were also there. This group likely a glimpse of the new South County gang collaboration.

Unfortunately the extra help wasn’t enough to allow the weekly Greenfield Explorers program meeting to continue.

“We had to cancel our second portion of it due to some shots being fired. And we don’t want to put anybody at risk and we have some priorities to do right now,” Greenfield officer Armando Mendoza said.

Frese said although they don’t have many leads to go on right now, the main concern is that her officers are focused on who their city offenders are.

“In fact we spent 8 hours just this past weekend they stayed locked in together studying gang members here in Greenfield,” Frese said.

Frese also had this message for those causing violence in her city: “Those are the ones we’re coming after, those are the ones our officers are studying, they’re studying their names, their addresses, who their associates are, who their gang affiliation is.”

Keeping Explorer programs going strong will hopefully lower the crime rate in the future, according to the police department. Right now the program has about 25 Explorers ranging from 14 to 20 years old and new Explorers are welcome to sign up all summer.