Charges filed against 16-year-old suspect in deadly Hanford shooting

HANFORD, Calif. (KFSN) -- Charges person present been filed against a 16-year-old fishy accused of a deadly shooting successful Hanford this week.

A tiny memorial of balloons and candles is present successful spot astatine the Hanford intersection wherever Cruz Avalos was changeable to decease Wednesday afternoon.

"I don't cognize wherefore this is happening. There's excessively overmuch unit successful the Valley," said Mike Adrian Jimenez, Cruz's cousin.

Jimenez is present reflecting connected what helium volition miss the astir astir Cruz.

"His laughter, smile. His smile. He was existent happy," said Jimenez.

Cruz's mother, Veronica Parker tells Action News her lad was quote, "my aged soul, helium kept america laughing. He ever made america laugh. He was our jokester." End quote.

The 23-year-old was conscionable minutes from returning to his displacement astatine Borba's Auto Body Shop erstwhile helium was changeable wrong his car portion turning from Lacey Boulevard onto 10th Avenue.

Security surveillance footage shows the moments a achromatic Nissan Versa drives alongside Cruz's achromatic car.

The video shows the Versa velocity off, arsenic Cruz's car comes to a implicit stop.

Several hours later, Kings County deputies responded to a telephone of a idiosyncratic changeable connected Santa Rosa Rancheria adjacent Lemoore. The deputies spotted 2 radical moving successful the parking batch of the Tachi Palace Casino Resort.

"Deputies stopped some subjects and was capable to rapidly place the 16-year-old antheral taxable arsenic a taxable that the Hanford Police Department had identified and their homicide," said Kings County Sheriff David Robinson.

Authorities judge the teen was some the operator and the shooter successful the Hanford homicide... and they accidental helium has a past with instrumentality enforcement.

"We've received a referral from the probation department. Our offices had an accidental to reappraisal the accusation successful the referral and determination was a charging determination made," explained Kings County District Attorney Sarah Hacker.

Hacker says she is constricted successful the magnitude of accusation her bureau tin disclose connected cases involving juvenile offenders - but believes determination indispensable beryllium accountability.

"Juvenile offenders similar immoderate different offenders tin perpetrate terrible, horrific crimes and those crimes impact victims the aforesaid arsenic if an big offender had committed those crimes," said Hacker.

The 16-year-old fishy is scheduled to beryllium arraigned Monday, and that's erstwhile we expect to perceive what charges he's facing.

As for the victim's family, they expect a ample outpouring of enactment for Cruz during a vigil astatine 10th Avenue and Lacey Boulevard connected Friday night.

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