On Friday, November 3, 2006, twenty-one year old criminal street gang member Manuel Contreras of Woodlake was sentenced for his involvement in the Halloween 2003 drive-by shooting that stole the sight of one victim, blinded another in one eye and hit a third victim in the upper arm. The Court sentenced him to a total of 125-life plus an additional twenty years following the guilty verdicts rendered by a jury on October 5, 2006. The defendant won’t be eligible to be considered for parole until the year 2172.

On Halloween the victims (who are not affiliated with any criminal street gang and were in their late teens) attended a gathering at a home in Woodlake. While the three friends stood near the street socializing with other guests at the party, they noticed a truck that passed by the location on several occasions. The truck caught their attention because it passed by slowly and the occupants yelled out gang slurs. The final time the truck drove by the house, the passenger pointed a sawed-off, single-barreled, pistol grip shotgun and fired one round at point blank range into the crowd striking all three victims.

The defendant, Manuel Contreras, was the driver of that vehicle and was the motivating force behind the shooting. Two nights before this shooting, a drive-by shooting occurred at the defendant’s home. The defendant knew that rival gang members were responsible but chose not to cooperate with law enforcement to bring those responsible for that shooting to justice. Instead, he contacted his fellow gang members to protect the house and to plot a retaliatory shooting. For the two days following, they remained at his house and spent most of their time talking about how they were going to payback the rivals. They hatched a plan to obtain a vehicle and shotgun so they could then could locate anyone who appeared to belong to the rival gang and shoot them. The defendant and his cohorts put that plan into action on Halloween. After the shooting the defendant fled to Mexico with the shooter and fifteen months later decided to turn himself in.

This case was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Samantha Arnerich with assistance by the Woodlake Police Department, former WPD officers: Officer Joe Echevarria, (currently with the Porterville Police Department) and Officer Robert Gilson who served as the gang expert, (currently with the Visalia Police Department) along with Investigator Gil Cardenas from the Tulare County District Attorney’s Office.

Contact person: Don Gallian, Assistant District Attorney 733-6411