Quiet community shaken by stabbing

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER
The silence that usually dominates the 600 block of San Ramon Drive in Goleta was shattered yesterday when Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s patrol cars and a forensic unit lined the street to investigate a midday stabbing.
As detectives huddled with witnesses at a residence on the corner of San Ramon and San Lorenzo Drive, children walking home from nearby Hollister Elementary School passed by and paid little attention to the hushed scene.

Packs of neighbors stood on front lawns chatting about the victim, whom they referred to as Richard, and his girlfriend and two-month-old daughter.
“I know that he got stabbed,” said an 18-year-old man who grew up in the neighborhood and asked to remain anonymous. “That’s all.”
A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said he had few details yesterday evening, saying only that the gang unit was investigating. Deputies were dispatched to the scene at 1:40 p.m.
A woman, who also asked to remain anonymous, said she raised four sons on the street and has lived in the neighborhood for decades, but never thought such violence could erupt there.
“Nothing ever goes on here,” she said. “You just don’t want sh-- like [this] happening in your neighborhood, you know?”
The woman said deputies told her the victim was assaulted by three men, who pulled up in a white sedan, exited the vehicle and stabbed the man, who she believes is 20 years old.
The woman said she was standing on the front lawn of her home, talking to one of her sons when she saw the victim jogging slowly up the street to his girlfriend’s home — a daily ritual that didn’t seem out of place.
“He walks up that street every day,” she said. “There was nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t see or hear a thing.”
She said the victim was stabbed in front of a home several houses down the block.
Not more than a minute after the victim entered his girlfriend’s home, where she lives with her parents, the woman said she saw the girlfriend’s father enter his car and speed away with the victim. The woman said she waved as they drove away, just as she would have on any other day.
“I didn’t know anything was wrong,” she said.
The woman said she did not notice the victim grabbing his stomach or anything else that would indicate the severity of the situation.
A couple of minutes after seeing the victim leave the residence — presumably for the hospital — the woman received a phone call from the victim’s girlfriend’s mother, who asked if the woman could take her daughter’s child and call 911.
The woman said she doesn’t know the victim well, but during her interactions with him, he was kind.
“He’s a nice kid,” she said. “He’s always very nice and polite.”
Dispatches heard over the police scanner indicated the victim had been stabbed in the torso, possibly the stomach. Attempts to confirm the severity of the injuries with Cottage Health System and the Sheriff’s Department were unsuccessful.
A 16-year-old girl who grew up on the street and said her best friend is the victim’s girlfriend, expressed surprise that a stabbing could occur in her neighborhood.
“This is the first time anything really bad has happened here,” she said.
Some said the victim lives in the neighborhood, but would not say where.
Bob Guillen has lived on San Lorenzo Drive since 1966 and called the area a “tight-knit community.”
“It’s a great neighborhood,” he said. “We’ve had block parties, had the street blocked off and used to have Fourth of July parades.”
Sarah Flynn lives directly across the street from the victim’s girlfriend’s home on San Ramon Drive and was getting ready to go on her afternoon walk when she noticed the heavy police presence.
“I’m quite shocked,” she said, adding that dozens of young children live in the area and doesn’t think it’s the kind of place where people have to worry about crime. “I also wouldn’t think someone would get stabbed in broad daylight a block away from my house.”