Monterey County Sheriff's Office detectives have arrested an 18-year-old Greenfield man in the Moss Landing shooting that killed two Salinas teenagers, booking him into the Monterey County Jail on Friday, November 6, on two counts of murder with criminal street gang enhancements, the Sheriff's Office announced. Donald William Breeden of Greenfield is being held on bail of $2,035,000.
Source: Monterey County Now
The arrest is the major new development in a case Awaaz Punjab reported earlier this week. Just before 2:00 a.m. on Monday, November 2, sheriff's deputies, California State Parks personnel and California Highway Patrol officers responded to reports of gunshots along Jetty Road in Moss Landing, the Sheriff's Office said. Deputies found two teenagers — boys aged 13 and 15, both from Salinas — who were pronounced dead at the scene. A third person arrived at a local hospital and was confirmed to have suffered a gunshot wound, and a fourth person was taken from the scene to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries that were later determined to be unrelated to the shooting.
Source: Monterey County Sheriff's Office
Raids in Greenfield and King City
The break in the case came on Thursday, November 5, when Sheriff's Office detectives, assisted by the Monterey County Sheriff's Office SWAT Team, the Monterey Peninsula Special Response Unit and California State Parks, executed two search warrants in the Salinas Valley, the Sheriff's Office said. The first warrant was served at about 3:00 p.m. at a home in the 900 block of Maple Avenue in Greenfield, where three individuals were detained. A second warrant was executed at about 6:00 p.m. at a home in the 45000 block of Crown Avenue in King City.
As a result of the investigation and the search warrants, detectives arrested Breeden on two counts of murder with criminal street gang enhancements, the Sheriff's Office said. He was booked into the Monterey County Jail with bail set at $2,035,000. The counts and the gang enhancements are allegations: Breeden has not been convicted of anything and is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
"We want to thank the members of our community who came forward with information that helped our detectives reach this point in the investigation. Our detectives have been working tirelessly to determine what led to the tragic deaths of these two young victims. While an arrest has been made, our work is not over."
A coastal road, a Salinas Valley investigation
Moss Landing is a small coastal community on Monterey Bay, between Monterey and Santa Cruz. Jetty Road runs beside Moss Landing State Beach and the Elkhorn Slough estuary, an area better known for fishing, kayaking and birdwatching than for violent crime. Greenfield and King City, where the warrants were served, are farming cities in the Salinas Valley in southern Monterey County, and Salinas — the county's largest city, where the two teenagers lived — is one of California's great agricultural centres. The valley's farm communities include Punjabi families who have worked and farmed in Monterey County and across the Central Coast for generations, and the deaths of two local teenagers have shaken the whole county.
Detectives have not announced a motive, and the Sheriff's Office said its detectives continue to work to establish the circumstances surrounding the shooting and the events that led to the deaths of the two victims. A criminal street gang enhancement is an additional allegation attached to a charge which prosecutors must prove in court; it is not a separate finding of guilt, and no finding has been made against Breeden.
Friday, November 6 — the day Breeden was booked — would have been the 14th birthday of the younger victim, who was 13, Monterey County Now reported. The loss has brought an outpouring of grief in Salinas, where family fundraisers and tributes to the two boys have been shared across the community.
What happens next
The investigation remains active and ongoing, the Sheriff's Office said, and the next step for Breeden is a first court appearance in Monterey County, where the murder charges will be formally presented and the question of his custody and representation addressed. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to contact Detective Sergeant N. Kennedy at 831-755-3773 or Detective R. Geng at 831-759-7279.