Lindsay police silent Friday on homicide investigation

LINDSAY — Police continued their investigation today into the city’s third homicide of the year.

More than 24 hours after securing the crime scene on the southeast corner of Homassel Avenue and Tulare Road, police this afternoon offered no updates in the status of the investigation.

Two calls this afternoon for sergeants at the Lindsay Department of Public Safety were not returned as of early tonight.

Sgt. Mike Marquez of the Farmersville Police Department reached out for help Thursday in solving the case — and in making the community safer for everyone.

“If there are residents in the area who want to take back their neighborhood and won’t tolerate this type of cowardly behavior, I encourage them to call the Lindsay police department or any local law enforcement agency,” Marquez said. “They need to realize that this is their community, they need to take back their community, they need to have zero tolerance.”

Marquez served as a law enforcement spokesman Thursday at the scene of the shooting. The investigation is being led by Lindsay police.

The shooting shattered the calm in what residents and police describe as a relatively quiet neighborhood.

Police were dispatched at 2:14 p.m. Thursday to 686 N. Homassel Ave. to investigate a call of a man with a gun. At the scene, they found a young man dead in the backyard. Police said he had been shot multiple times.

Subsequent investigation involved officers from a number of nearby communities, which have put a task force in place to better handle major crimes when they occur in any of the communities involved.

The victim was in his early 20s, police said, and was shot multiple times. His name is being withheld pending notification of his family.

The suspect is described as a male, as young as 18 but possibly in his 20s, 5 feet 7 inches tall, and was last seen wearing a white shirt and dark-colored pants.

This is the third homicide of the year in Lindsay. Two other homicides have occurred in orchards near Lindsay and are being investigated by the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department.

-- Contact Glen Faison at 784-5000, Ext. 1040 or gfaison@portervillerecorder.com.