Modesto police arrest suspect in road-rage shooting recounted on social media
Police arrested a Modesto man suspected in a June 16 drive-by shooting that injured two people downtown — an ordeal detailed by one of the victims on social media.
Fernando Garcia, 21, was arrested at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday after a traffic stop at Litt and Plainview roads, just northeast of the city, the Modesto Police Department said in a news release.
Garcia was booked at the Stanislaus County Jail on two counts of attempted murder and one each of child endangerment and possessing an assault weapon. He remained there Friday afternoon on $550,000 bail.
The shooting happened on Father’s Day afternoon at Ninth and D streets and was directed at a car occupied by a pregnant woman, her 4-year-old daughter and her boyfriend.
The woman said in the post that she was driving west on Yosemite Boulevard when a car nearly sideswiped her as she entered downtown. She said she honked and threw her hands up in an annoyed gesture, and her boyfriend yelled “What the heck?” at the driver.
The woman said they were side by side at a red light at 10th Street when about five shots were fired from the other car.
“I feel the bullet go through my neck and see my glass shattering all over us,” she posted. “I wait for one to hit my head and end my life completely. My 4-year-old daughter in the back seat, taking a nap, she wakes up confused.”
A bullet “barely missed my neck bone,” the woman said, and she was released after treatment at a hospital. She said a bullet hit her boyfried’s lung and spine and he was placed in intensive care. An update on his condition was not immediately available Friday. The 4-year-old and the unborn child were not injured.
The woman declined to identify herself in an interview with The Modesto Bee. She used the experience to urge other drivers to be careful in such encounters.
“If you have road rage or beep when someone cuts you off or even flip them off, please avoid doing that,” she posted.
Garcia was arrested by the department’s Street Gang Unit. A search of the red sedan he was driving found an AR-15 assault rifle, the release said.
Detectives are looking for other possible suspects. Anonymous tips can be left with Crime Stoppers at 209-521-4636.
This story was originally published June 28, 2019 at 2:40 PM.
