Quick Take
Santa Cruz police confirmed that two people were shot outside of the Crow’s Nest restaurant on Thursday night. Both remained in critical condition in hospital on Friday. Police are investigating a suspect and motive in the shooting and are encouraging witnesses to come forward.
Multiple law enforcement agencies swarmed to the Crow’s Nest area of the Santa Cruz Harbor on Thursday night after a shooting in the busy and popular spot.
Santa Cruz police confirmed that two people were shot in the harbor parking lot shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday. Both remained in critical condition in hospital Friday. Dominican Hospital and Dignity Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The shooting was sparked by an altercation in the parking lot, police said in a news release Friday morning. A suspect fled in a black Dodge Charger. Police said they were still investigating the incident and had not identified the suspect or a motive for the shooting, and encouraged witnesses to come forward.
A Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office representative who refused to give her name told Lookout late Thursday night that she did not know how many shots were fired, but confirmed that there were no reports of shots inside the restaurant.
Witnesses recounted the speed with which the shooting happened. Kim Baker was leaving the parking lot near the restaurant when she said she saw two men walk around a corner into an alleyway right before the shooting. Gunshots soon rang out from where they had gone.
“A guy came running around saying, ‘I got shot, I got shot,’ and then he went to the ground right away,” she said.
“We don’t know if it was gang-related or if it was random,” said Charlie Brown, the head of security for the Crow’s Nest. “We don’t know any of that right now.”
The incident coincided with a popular gathering, the Crow’s Nest Thursday beach BBQ party — a free event that includes live music and an outdoor bar every Thursday evening from late May through late August.
Sam Kemp, who was attending the party, said he was walking to the bathroom in the parking lot when he heard the same “bangs” that Baker recalled. As he got closer to the source of the sound, he saw people running away, and a woman came up to him asking if she had been shot. He said she appeared to be fine, but he soon saw another man lying on the ground between the Crow’s Nest and nearby beachside restaurant Cafe El Palomar.
“I heard him say that he got shot and then more and more people came and circled him,” Kemp said. “We started seeing some blood, but he was conscious and talking the whole time.”
Kemp said police came and set up a perimeter soon after that, but an ambulance took around 20 minutes to show up.
Kemp said the victim’s friends were talking to him and trying to help him as emergency medical services treated him: “It sounded like he was conscious as they put him in the ambulance.”
More photos from the scene
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