OAKLAND — A man arrested in a deadly shooting at the Lake Merritt BART station allegedly told an acquaintance he shot the man because he tried to steal his electric scooter, court documents show.
Juan Martinez, 45, was taken into custody on Tuesday about an hour and a half after the shooting. Prosecutors have charged him with murder, felony criminal threats and several sentencing enhancements, and he remains held at Santa Rita Jail without bail.
The Alameda County Coroner’s Office had yet to identify the man killed in the shooting by Friday afternoon. He was shot in the back and declared dead just minutes after BART police were dispatched, according to court papers.
Before the shooting, investigators say the Martinez appeared to spend several minutes arguing with the victim near the BART station’s street-level elevator, according to court documents.
Surveillance footage shows Martinez pull a handgun from his backpack and try loading it before putting it back in his bag, the court documents say. When the man Martinez had been arguing with walked past him again, Martinez then stood up and shot him, investigators alleged in court papers.
A person later contacted BART police to say that Martinez had showed up at his house and spoke of shooting someone after that person had tried to steal his electric scooter, court papers say. Martinez did not speak to police after being detained.
The killing happened around the same time as another fatal shooting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline boat launch on Doolittle Drive, near the Oakland International Airport. The shooting, which killed a man, remains under investigation and no arrests have been announced.
Source: www.mercurynews.com