In a disturbing sign, the tranquility of another residential neighborhood was rendered by a double homicide in 36,664-population Montclair for the second time in eight months.
Early in the morning of October 4, Montclair police were summoned to a single family residence in the 4300 block of El Morado Street by 911 calls reporting gun shots. At the home they found three men shot and another severely beaten. Emergency medical personnel also responded. One of the wounded men died at the scene. A second survived until he was transported to a hospital, but died shortly after arrival there.
Montclair homicide investigators were tightlipped about the details of the case. None of victims, including the two who were slain, had been identified at press time.
The only information vouchsafed to the public is that police believe the killings were gang-related.
While this week’s incident does not put Montclair into the same league as the county seat, 213,708-population San Bernardino, where 47 people were murdered in 2012 and 45 were killed in 2013, including a rash of eight murders over a period of nine days at the end of April and first week of May in 2012, the violence represents a distressing trend at the west end of the county. The deaths bring to a total of four those murdered in Montclair in 2015.
All four of those deaths involved gangland overtones. Montclair’s first double homicide this year took place on February 8 in the 11000 block of Monte Vista Avenue. Livied Arturo Sanchez, 33, of West Covina, and Mario Padilla, 34, of Pomona, both of whom had been bound with duct tape, were killed “execution-style” according to Montclair police. A third victim, since identified as Edgar Rivera Calderon, was able to escape the assailants with his hands yet bound by duct tape behind his back. Bloodied and terrified, Calderon fled on foot southward down Monte Vista. Montclair Police have since located him.
What is known is that those who perpetrated last Sunday’s act were not the same ones responsible for last February’s mayhem. The two men Montclair police say killed Sanchez and Padilla, Richard Corry Roach, 37, and David Nash McKell, 35, have been behind bars since August and April, respectively. Both have been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the February slayings.