Quick Take
The Parish Publick House will host a fundraiser and benefit concert Friday night for two victims of a Nov. 15 drive-by shooting on Santa Cruz's Westside. Rich Brookes, one of the victims of the shooting, says he is grateful for the support and hopes to attend.
After two diners were injured in a drive-by shooting outside his Westside Santa Cruz restaurant, Parish Publick House owner Erik Granath reached out to the two men offering to hold a fundraiser to help them navigate the road to recovery.
That fundraiser will take the form of a benefit concert Friday night featuring local bands Wildflower & The Bees and Diggin’ Trails performing for free. Granath said 20% of the entire day’s profits will be given to the two men injured in the shooting, Merrill Roberts and Richard Brookes.
“We wanted to, as a community, take back our space and do something positive with it,” said Granath.
Both Roberts and Brookes have returned home from the hospital following the Nov. 15 shooting outside the restaurant. Police said the men were innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of what they allege was a gang-related attack.
Roberts previously told Lookout that the fact he is not dead or paralyzed is a “miracle.” In an interview Thursday, Brookes said he feels lucky, too. “I’m just glad I can recover.”
Brookes was shot in the back near his spine. He said his surgeon told him that the bullet broke one of his ribs, but his ribcage did its job by protecting his spine. The shooting, he said, happened in a split second.
“I was just sitting and eating and then I felt a pain in my back,” he said, adding that his injuries put him in the hospital for four days. “I didn’t have any chance to avoid anything.”
Brookes said he still has plenty of issues that he’s working through. The wound in his back from the bullet isn’t healing correctly, which will require more doctor visits. He still has the bullet inside of him near his diaphragm. Doctors are still debating whether to try to remove the bullet.
While it’s challenging to process that it will be some time before he can once again do the things he loves, Brookes said he’s grateful he wasn’t killed or more gravely injured: “It contrasts with a sense of thankfulness, you know. Just a couple centimeters or inches and it would be a completely different story, and I wouldn’t be able to have the challenges of recovering.”
A teacher, Brookes moved to Santa Cruz after graduating from San Jose’s Yerba Buena High School over 30 years ago, largely because it’s his favorite place to surf. He attended UC Santa Cruz, and began his teaching career at Aptos High School and taught at Brook Knoll Elementary School as well. He has lived in San Jose with his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Claire, for the past decade.
Brookes said his recovery comes with many “ups and downs.” He oscillates from feeling encouraged and energetic to lethargic and exhausted. Despite that, he is already back to teaching, even if he does end up taking more time away from the classroom. Brookes teaches middle school students with disabilities at Bridges Academy in San Jose.
“I’m just trying to put in as many days as I can and get a few things done,” he said. “The kids have been just stellar and trying to help things work out as well as they can.”
Brookes added that he is deeply appreciative of the outpouring of support he has received from the entire community. “Sometimes we see that the worst aspects of humanity also bring out the best aspects of humanity,” he said. “You can get dark feelings about something like this but then you see all the positive things and the caring, and it changes that.”
Although he still has a long way to go before he’s back to full health, Brookes hopes to make it to the Parish fundraiser Friday evening. Even if he doesn’t, his wife and daughter said they would attend.
“I’m going to see if I have the energy to go,” he said. “If I can make it, I’ll bring my walker and show up for a little bit.”
For now, Brookes is focused on the future, when he hopes to gather once again with Roberts and other friends who were with them on the day of the shooting and to paddle out into the Santa Cruz waters once again.
“Having that goal encourages me to recover,” he said. “It pushes me to do all the little things that are painful — the exercises and breathing that will help me get there.”
The Parish’s benefit concert runs from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., 841 Almar Ave., Santa Cruz.
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