SAN JOSE — A person arrested as an alleged accomplice in the fatal shooting of a grocery worker at the Willow Glen Safeway earlier this summer was set to be released from jail after prosecutors decided not to charge him in the case.
Jacob Parrilla, a 19-year-old San Jose resident, was arrested and jailed Wednesday. On Friday, the day he would have had to be arraigned, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said that it has declined to file charges against him.
“We are declining to file due to insufficiency of evidence,” the office said in a statement. “We cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty of participating in this violence.”
Prosecutors have the option of filing charges later if San Jose police, who are investigating the homicide, present new evidence implicating him.
“The investigation is ongoing,” the DA’s office said.
Parrilla was arrested in connection with the June 5 fatal shooting of 24-year-old Manny Huizar at the Safeway on Hamilton Avenue. He was never accused of being the shooter; that allegation has been made against 18-year-old Tevita Tuakalau, who was arrested in Utah last week and is awaiting extradition to the Bay Area.
When San Jose police announced the arrests of Tuakalau and Parrilla, they did not specify what role Parrilla allegedly had, though his sole booking offense of conspiracy suggested he was peripheral to the actual shooting itself.
According to police and co-workers, Huizar was working the overnight shift stocking shelves when he was shot, after approaching a man thought to be stealing a bottle of alcohol from the store’s liquor aisle. One co-worker told this news organization that he was on the opposite side of the store when he heard the sound of breaking glass, then ran toward the source and saw someone dive into the backseat of a waiting sedan and flee.
The co-worker found a mortally wounded Huizar on the floor, and he died soon after. Security cameras were present in the store and the parking lot, and family members say the store has footage of the killing.
Still, authorities have not disclosed precisely how they identified the two men as suspects. Now, in light of the decision not to charge Parrilla, key investigative details won’t become public until — or unless — Tuakalau is extradited and charged.
Anyone with information about the June 5 homicide can contact Homicide Detective Jennifer Valosek at 408-277-5283 or by email at 4245@sanjoseca.gov. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.
