Orange police tape the only remnants of Monday shooting on South 10th Street that killed unidentified woman. No arrest yet@mercnews pic.twitter.com/TyjCifceLe
— Robert Salonga (@robertsalonga) July 4, 2017
SAN JOSE — Police on Tuesday were still searching for a man who shot a woman to death inside a home a couple of blocks south of San Jose State University the day before.
Few details about the homicide were released by police during the Fourth of July holiday, as residents in the area expressed either befuddlement by the outburst of violence or simmering frustration with worrisome activity they routinely saw at the home where the shooting occurred.
San Jose police were alerted to trouble just after 5 p.m. Monday when someone called 911 to report hearing “loud bangs” coming from inside the home on South 10th Street between Reed and Margaret streets in downtown San Jose.
Officers entered the home and found a woman suffering from at least one gunshot wound. She died at the scene, police said.
Her identity was not immediately released pending notification of her relatives. What led to the shooting remains under investigation, but police said that the woman and her attacker knew each other.
A heavy police contingent was summoned to the scene. And residents said the officers remained there into Tuesday morning as they searched for the shooter. No suspect had been publicly identified as of late Tuesday.
There was little lead-up to the violence, and some neighbors presumed the gunshots were just the sound of illegal fireworks that had been ignited constantly over the past few days.
One neighborhood resident, who asked not to be named out of safety concerns, said she left to run errands shortly before 5 p.m., hearing nothing emanating from the home. But she returned a short time later to find police officers out front.
“Everything was fine — nothing out of normal. It was very fast and instant,” the resident said. “When I saw the officers, I thought they found someone walking drunk down the street.”
Other residents described the home as the site of a lot of late-night parties and a lot of different people and cars coming and going every evening. They also believed that the victim was not a resident of the home, as they knew only men to be officially living there.
A man who showed up at the home Tuesday afternoon claiming to be a resident declined to comment.
The shooting death marked the 15th homicide of the year in San Jose, compared with 25 homicides at the same point in 2016.
Anyone with information about the case can contact the San Jose Police Department’s homicide unit at 408-277-5283. Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP or svcrimestoppers.org. Tipsters may be eligible for a cash reward.