With three more men taken into custody, a total of five suspects have now been arrested, accused of attacking people with baseball bats in Oceanside in August.
Witnesses say men with bandanas covering their faces assaulted several men with bats in the 1400 block of North Harbor Drive at around 8:50 p.m. on Aug. 17 and then left in a vehicle, the department said. Oceanside police said on Friday that the incidents were investigated as a gang-motivated crime.
“I heard a clang when the bat made contact with the head,” a man who NBC 7 is calling "Peter" said after attacks. He did not want to be identified due to his safety. "I see a crowd of people and a gentleman with a bandana and a backward hat and metal bat and see him swing and hit a person in the head. Then people started running."
Multiple victims were taken to the hospital with various injuries, OPD said.
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On Friday, investigators said they had arrested Franco J. Barahona of Lakeside in Oceanside on Sept. 15, and then, two and a half weeks later, Yucca Valley resident Sergio C. Resendiz was arrested, also in Oceanside, on Oct. 3, 2024. Thursday night, according to police, the last man they arrested, Steven I.A. Paz, of San Diego was arrested in his hometown.
The three men are facing "several felony charges," according to a news release issued Friday by OPD.
Jorge L. Perez of Vista and Pablo F. Gonzalez of Oceanside were both taken into custody in Vista on Sept. 3, according to the Oceanside Police Department. They each pleaded not guilty on Sept. 5, according to the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.
Perez and Gonzalez have been charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, three counts of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and a single charge of robbery.
During an investigation, gang detectives with the department identified five people — including Perez and Gonzalez — as suspects in the incident, according to Oceanside police.
In the news release issued Friday, police stressed that they did not believe the attacks in August with baseball bats were not related to a pair of homicides and an attempted murder of homeless people in the past several weeks in Oceanside.
"We do not believe there are any ties between this case and the recent homicides and assaults that have been reported over the last three weeks," police said.
The two men who died in those attacks were beaten to death; the third victim was stabbed multiple times.
Anybody with information about the baseball-bat attacks is being urged to call Oceanside's Gang Crimes Unit at (760) 435-4264.
