Shooting victim identified

Dominic Jerome Mower is led out of the former Freedom Sheet Metal building, 200 Prospect St, in Febrary after a four-hour standoff with police. (File photo by Tarmo Hannula).

WATSONVILLE — The Watsonville man who was shot and killed early Wednesday on Prospect Street has been identified as Dominic Mower, 37, Sgt. Saul Gonzalez said.

Police found Mower, with multiple gunshot wounds, inside the long-abandoned Freedom Sheet Metal building, 200 Prospect St., just after 3 a.m. Wednesday. They were following a trail of blood from another shooting victim, a 22-year-old woman who had staggered to a nearby house seeking help. Mower was pronounced dead at the scene.

No arrests have been made and police are unsure of a motive.

The female victim, who was flown to a trauma center out of county, is stable and is expected to survive, police said. She reportedly had been shot once somewhere near or inside the Freedom Sheet Metal building and made her way to the front door of a home on the 100 block of Prospect. Bleeding heavily, she banged on the door and asked the residents to call 9-1-1.

Detectives from the Watsonville Police Department, Santa Cruz Gang Task Force, Santa Cruz Anti-Crime Team, and the District Attorney's office worked throughout the day and night Wednesday following investigative leads.

Gonzalez said police have ruled out a murder/suicide. He said it appears Mower was targeted. One neighbor said Mower had been shot in the head, neck and chest.

Wednesday’s event was not the first time police have visited the 200 Prospect St. On Feb. 28, Mower and Andrew Casillas, 27, also of Watsonville, were arrested after a four-hour standoff with dozens of police officers and a S.W.A.T. team. The pair had holed up inside the building after police surrounded it as part of a search for Mower.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies were investigating a residential burglary a day before the standoff in which they believed Mower stole a gun. Fearing he was armed inside the building police cordoned off a large section of the neighborhood and evacuated a number of homes. Police eventually flushed the pair out of the building without incident. No weapons were found.

On Wednesday — and back in February — neighbors complained that people had transformed the Freedom Sheet Metal building into a drug house and a chop shop for stolen cars. Some neighbors claim the building is the site of frequent and brief visits by young men who drive up at night, stop by for a few minutes and then drive off.

Anyone with further information regarding the Prospect Street shootings is encouraged to contact the WPD Investigation Division at 768-3350 or the Crime Tip Line at 768-3544.



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