Photo: Stock Image
Written By: Robert L. McCullough
The shooting death of 52-year-old Robert Dion Gutierrez on the night of December 9, 2023 while he strolled among the crowds of tourists on Santa Barbara’s Stearns Wharf prompted a widespread and far-ranging police investigation. Gutierrez, an innocent bystander in the incident, died from multiple gunshot wounds 11 days later.
It took another 30 days for detectives to track down 21-year-old James Lee Rosborough, 22-year-old Tenorio Ramon, 21-year-old Christopher Dave Miranda, and 20-year-old Ricardo Tomas Jauregui-Moreno who had been identified as active gang members responsible for the shooting.
According to Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office spokesman Deputy District Attorney Tate McCallister, on the night of the shooting the four accused “verbally challenged a group of pedestrians” on the public thoroughfare of Stearns Wharf and then “deployed two of their party to attack a group of pedestrians with a firearm,” then “discharged a firearm” that killed Gutierrez, then “fled the location of the murder, two on foot and two by vehicle,” and then returned to the scene of the crime to “extract those who fled on foot to avoid apprehension.”
All four suspects were contacted by Santa Barbara Police Department detectives working in concert with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Gang Unit and taken into custody on January 19th. They are currently held without bail, each charged with multiple offenses ranging from violation of probation terms, participation in a criminal street gang, conspiracy, street terrorism, and murder.
