The non-profit charity organization Mothers Against Murder (MAM) is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect in the shooting of a resident last weekend who had been involved in a series of carjackings in parked cars in Palo Alto.
The Police Department announced this in a statement detailing that the incident took place last Saturday, January 29.
It was around 11:58 p.m. that day when the dispatch center received a call reporting a shot fired during a carjacking that had just occurred in the 3600 block of South Court.
The caller reported that he had not been hit by the suspects who fled in a vehicle, to which officers responded immediately, but were unable to locate them, authorities said.
The investigation revealed that the victim, a man in his thirties, noticed lights shining on the street in front of his house. When he looked outside, he saw several suspects walking down the street with flashlights, shining lights on parked cars and attempting to open car doors.
The man left his home to confront them and found one of the suspects standing by the open driver's door of his car in the driveway of his home, and pursued him on foot as they ran toward a getaway vehicle.
As the suspects got into the vehicle, the victim heard what he believed was a gunshot and thought he saw the bullet impact the pavement in front of him. The vehicle drove north on South Court and then east on East Meadow Drive. The victim then called police. Officers located a spent shell casing from a .40 caliber handgun at the scene and processed it into evidence.
Police believe this group of suspects was the same one later reported to have committed similar crimes in the 700 block of Talisman Court earlier that night.