A 23-year-old documented gang member who was released from jail earlier this month after two weeks behind bars was killed in a shooting in Anaheim that police suspect was gang-related.
Officers responded about 9 p.m. Tuesday to a report of shots fired in the 2500 block of East Park Lane, near the Riverside (91) Freeway and border with Placentia, and located Jose Allen Martinez of Placentia suffering from at least one gunshot wound, according to Sgt. Jeff Mundy of the Anaheim Police Department.
Officers performed life-saving efforts until paramedics arrived, but Martinez was pronounced dead at the scene, he said.
A bicycle was found next to Martinez’s body, Mundy told a news photographer at the scene.
Detectives suspect the shooting was gang-related, Mundy said.
Martinez had been released from jail on Jan. 13. He pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a probationer and street terrorism, both misdemeanors, and was sentenced to 268 days in jail, according to court records, which show he was also convicted in November 2014 of being an active gang member carrying a loaded firearm in public on the Fourth of July that year.
About 12 hours after Martinez was shot, police were called to the 400 block of South Kroeger Street to investigate another suspected gang-related fatal shooting of a man in his 20s, Mundy said. Police were considering whether the two shootings were linked in some way, he said.
“It’s something they’re considering, but it’s too soon to tell,” Mundy said.
Anyone with information about either shooting was asked to call Anaheim police detectives at (714) 765-1900 or OC Crime Stoppers at (855) 847-6227.