BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — At least one of two shootings that occurred the same day at a Downtown Bakersfield venue was gang-related and caught on surveillance video, police say in court documents.
The shootings happened early May 22 at Pelezzio Reception Venue, located at Chester Avenue and 19th Street.
The footage shows Gary Lee Clayton and another man standing by a photo booth when a man approaches, documents said. Gang hand signs are exchanged, the documents say, and Clayton and the man next to him draw guns and follow the other man toward the front entrance.
Only Clayton is named in the documents; the other names are redacted.
Clayton fires a single shot then he and his companion run, according to the reports. Someone goes outside, pulls a gun from their waistband and shoots “blindly into the front window of the business immediately after Clayton fired his weapon,” documents said. That person drives away on a motorcycle.
Two men were wounded, police said. One man’s head was grazed by a bullet. The man said he got a drink and suddenly felt a pain in his head, and the next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital, documents said.
Another man suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg, the reports say.
Clayton, 43, and Anthony Felix, 22, are charged with attempted murder and other offenses.
A third man, Bobby West, 27, is also charged. Police said he fired a gun into the venue several times after being denied entry when he refused to let security pat him down.
All three men are due back in court July 20. Each was on active felony probation.
According to the documents, police identified several West Side and East Side Crips in attendance, and the shooting is believed to be the latest in a series of recent violent confrontations between the rival gangs.
“In the past several months, there has been an extreme increase and ongoing gang violence within the city of Bakersfield between the East Side Crips criminal street gang and West Side Crips criminal street gang . . . ,” an investigator wrote.
Clayton, Felix and West remain in custody.
