Serial ‘projectile’ sniper in this Southern California city targeting pedestrians

A serial “projectile” sniper has been targeting pedestrians along a stretch of road in Ventura for what may be as long as a year, leaving many of the victims with painful injuries.

Several victims are speaking out because they’re concerned that someone is going to suffer more serious injuries when the person strikes again.

One woman, who asked to remain anonymous because the shooter has not yet been captured, said that on the night of July 7, she was walking down Thompson Boulevard near MacMillan Avenue, just a few blocks from the Ventura Pier, when she was struck on the back of her neck.

“I felt a really painful, fast, sharp pain on the right side of my neck,” she explained. “I immediately fell to the ground.”

What hit her, she quickly learned, was a red marble-sized object that looked like a paintball or a gumball.

“I initially thought it was a rock coming up or something that got kicked up by a car, but it was clear that somebody was intentionally targeting pedestrians in this area,” she added.

Later, the victim wrote about her experience and posted it on the social media platform Reddit, where nearly a dozen other people responded with similar incidents that had happened to them.

“I felt a terrible sting on the back of my shoulder, very painful,” a woman identified only as April told KTLA’s Rachel Menitoff.

She said she was targeted on June 15 in the exact same area after having breakfast with her family at Cafe Nouveau. The projectile, in this case, was a similar size and purple-colored.

“I think somebody could be seriously injured, possibly be hit in the head or the eye or the temple or something like that,” she said.

Another woman, identified only as June, was struck by a yellow-colored gumball last year around this time when she was picking up a propane tank from a U-Haul facility.

“Normal people don’t go around shooting people,” she said. “To find out that it’s happening to so many people on this same little stretch of road is very concerning.”

All the incidents have happened within a block-or-two radius and each time the force of the objects caught the victims completely off guard.

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Two of the three victims who spoke to KTLA said they reported the shootings to police.

The third said she didn’t even realize she was on the receiving end of a crime until she started comparing notes with others who had been similarly shot.

Mucho Gusto Barbershop, owned by Alfred Leon, is right across the street from where one of the sniper’s victims was struck. He says post-COVID, he’s watched this area of Ventura go through a positive resurgence and this lone shooter is putting a damper on that.

“I finally started seeing people walk with their dogs [again],” he explained. “So, to actually see and hear about people getting shot in the neck isn’t really community-like. It’s not fun for anybody.”

Authorities with the Ventura Police Department told KTLA that about a month ago it responded to reports of someone shooting out of a car window in the area, but the person responsible was never identified.

Several of the victims claim they saw a white pickup truck take off after they were struck.

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