Photo: Stock Image
On June 11, 2024, at approximately 2:07 PM, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Fillmore Communication Center received multiple 911 calls reporting gunshots in a downtown City of Fillmore neighborhood. Moments later, that call was followed by another report of gunfire just a block away. According to VCSD spokesman Sgt. Baltazar Tapia, reporting witnesses described “a vehicle speeding away” and several individuals fleeing the scene.
As they rolled up to the scene, responding uniformed Fillmore patrol deputies “found evidence of the shootings”.
At that point, detectives from the Sheriff’s Major Crimes Bureau, Fillmore Bureau of Investigations, and West County Special Enforcement Unit went to work interviewing witnesses and assessing the evidence at the scene. It didn’t take them long to identify Fillmore residents Nathaniel Marrufo, 21, and Juanluis Orozco, 19, as primary suspects.
Two days later, on June 13, 2024, detectives located and arrested Marrufo and Orozco cruising along a downtown thoroughfare in the City of Oxnard. Search warrants were then obtained and executed at their residences, which yielded further evidence linking them to the shootings.
Marrufo and Orozco were booked into the Pre-Trial Detention Facility on charges of assault with a firearm, negligent discharge of a firearm, dissuading a witness from reporting a crime, and falsely reporting an emergency. Both Marrufo and Orozco—reputed members of a criminal gang—remain in custody on a no-bail hold.
Authorities are requesting anyone with additional information to contact the Fillmore Bureau of Investigations.
