Suspects charged with attempted homicide

First-degree attempted homicide charges were filed last Friday against two men who had been living in Abbotsford until Feb. 16, when they were seen carrying guns while leaving the scene of a shooting at the Northside Apartments.

Carlos Ruben Santigo-Gonzalez, 25, and Joennuel Moctezuma-Torres, 22, were also charged with first-degree recklessly endangering safety. The two men, who had been living at the Northside Apartments, were each charged as a party to a crime.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the two suspects, and local police are still tracking down leads in an effort to determine their whereabouts. Police have said the public is not in danger, as the shooting was a targeted attack.

The criminal complaint filed in Clark County Circuit County sheds new light on the details of the Feb. 16 shooting, which left a male victim with non-fatal wounds to his abdomen. Medford police were the first to find out about the shooting, since the victim was taken to the Aspirus Hospital emergency room by his friend and a female acquaintance. He did not drive himself to the hospital, as was originally reported in last week’s edition.

An officer from the Colby-Abbotsford Police Department responded to the hospital in Medford after the victim told authorities that he had been shot in Abbotsford. The officer spoke with the victim’s friend, who said the victim had been helping him move out of his apartment when the gunmen showed up.

The victim told police that Santiago- Gonzalez and Moctezuma-Torres had been harassing him for about two months, but he did not know why. He said he did not know their names, and could only describe them from previous encounters.

The victim’s friend said he answered the door to his apartment when the two suspects arrived. He said they were looking for the victim, but did not say why.

The friend said the suspects were dressed in winter clothes, and they had their faces covered from the nose down. He said he ran outside of his apartment when the shooting started.

Officers reviewed security camera footage from the Northside Apartments, which showed the two suspects approaching the apartment. The two suspects “appeared to be upset and yelling,” but they were initially held back and moved away from the apartment by a male party and his girlfriend.

“A couple of minutes later, the males run back toward the apartment and appear to run inside,” the police report states. “The two males then ran out of the apartment and you can see that each male had a handgun.”

At least three shots were fired, according to police chief Jason Bauer, but at this time, police are not certain if one or both of the suspects shot the victim.

The suspects put the handguns in their pockets and then entered another apartment, along with a third man wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The couple who had tried holding them back went into a separate apartment, and a short time later, they came back out and got into a Ford Explorer, with the female party in the driver’s seat.

The two suspects, along with the male party wearing a hooded sweatshirt, then got into the back of the Explorer before it took off. The vehicle was later found parked on Second Street, but the suspects were gone.

The victim’s friend attended to the victim, and enlisted the help of a female acquaintance who knew the way to the hospital in Medford, the police reports state.

When an officer asked the friend how the suspects could have known the victim was at his apartment, he said he didn’t know.

Police executed a search warrant on Santiago-Gonzalez’s apartment, and recovered ammunition for a Glock 40 handgun and a 40-caliber Smith and Wesson.

Three Oxycodone pills were also seized, along with a laptop computer and a digital camera.

Santiago-Gonzalez was convicted of resisting an officer in 2015, following a fight at El Norteno Restaurant in Curtiss. Charges of battery and disorderly conduct were dismissed in that case.

Moctezuma-Torres has no previous charges on his record.

If convicted of first-degree attempted homicide, each suspect faces up to 60 years in prison. If convicted on the lesser charge of reckless endangerment, they could be imprisoned for as much as 12 years and six months.