Man Shot to Death in Nyeland Acres

A young man who relatives said moved to Ventura County two weeks ago to escape a crime-ridden neighborhood in Reno was shot and killed early Sunday as he sat in a parked car in Nyeland Acres.

Ramiro Ahumada Jr., who turned 21 a week ago, was pronounced dead at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard less than an hour after the 2 a.m. shooting in the 2600 block of Eucalyptus Drive, said James Baroni, a senior deputy medical examiner.

Albert Aparicio, 30, of El Rio, who was sitting in the car’s back seat, was also shot. He was treated and released from the same hospital, Ventura County sheriff’s officials said.

Homicide detectives questioned several people, but they had made no arrests as of late Sunday. Authorities believe the incident could involve gang retaliation and that one or both of the victims knew the shooter.

This was the second fatal shooting in the Oxnard area this month. On Aug. 7, Israel Mendez, 20, was gunned down on his bicycle a block from the G Street apartment he shared with his mother and younger brother.

Sunday’s shooting occurred in front of a small house where Ahumada had been living with relatives. He was shot several times in the upper body while sitting in the passenger seat of his cousin’s car.

The cousin was not in the car at the time.

Less than eight hours after the shooting, Ahumada’s mother, Noemi, remained in shock. She said it was her idea for her only son to return to the Oxnard area, where the family had lived more than a decade ago before moving to Bakersfield and then Reno.

Her son had recently landed a construction job in Ventura County, she said.

“I feel bad,� said Ahumada, who lives in Reno and had been visiting friends in Los Angeles over the weekend. “Maybe if he would have stayed with me in Reno this wouldn’t have happened.�

This was her second tragic loss to street violence.

Four years ago, her brother, Julian Armas, was stabbed to death on a Reno street, she said. Armas had taken her advice to leave Oxnard to get away from the lure of drugs and crime.

“It could happen anywhere,� she said of the deaths.

Sunday afternoon, the victim’s father, Ramiro Ahumada Sr., and other relatives filed in and out of the white Eucalyptus Drive house, surrounded by a chain-link fence, yellow rose bushes and a lawn cluttered with children’s toys.

“The only thing I want to say is that I hope the police find the person who did this and put him in jail,� the father said.

Witnesses in the Nyeland Acres neighborhood said they heard at least eight shots followed by the sound of sirens and a sheriff’s helicopter, and a bright spotlight shined down on nearby alleys and backyards.

Louis Armas, another cousin of the victim, said he had warned him that he had moved into a tough neighborhood.

“Like most kids, he had run around with the wrong crowd,� said Armas, a military police officer with the Channel Islands Air National Guard in Port Hueneme. “I used to give him an earful about how he had to get a job and do something.�