WATSONVILLE — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Watsonville mother’s “suspicious” death on a Corralitos hiking trail this weekend and the shooting of her partner by police.
Watsonville Police Department officials said the father, 25-year-old Joshua Gonzalez of Watsonville, turned up on the department’s front lobby door before 9:30 p.m. Saturday, where he allegedly called dispatchers to threaten to harm his 3-year-old daughter with a knife.
Within 12 seconds of a dispatcher broadcasting the threat at 9:19 p.m., an officer radioed dispatchers to say that shots had been fired in front of the police department and that a Hispanic male adult in his 20s had been shot in the chest, according to a recorded police broadcast.
In the wake of the shooting, the family of the child’s mother, Lizbeth Arceo Sedano, 25, of Watsonville, reported her missing to police. Then, shortly after 9:30 a.m. Sunday, a caller reported finding a body on a Rattlesnake Gulch hiking trail in Corralitos, not far from the intersection of Eureka Canyon Road and Grizzly Flat Road, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Ashley Keehn described Arceo’s death as an ongoing investigation and that deputies are treating it as a homicide.
“At this time our detectives are working to conduct interviews and gather forensic evidence,” Keehn wrote in an email to the Sentinel Monday. “Our Forensic Pathologist will conduct an autopsy, and we expect to have results by the end of the day tomorrow. We extend our sincerest condolences to Lizbeth’s family during this horrific time.”
Child, officers safe after Watsonville shooting
Saturday’s shooting of Gonzalez occurred after an arriving officer stepped out of his patrol car and ordered Gonzalez to drop his knife “at least two times,” Watsonville Police Chief Jorge Zamora said in an interview Monday. Gonzalez allegedly ignored the order and charged the officer, which led to the shooting, police said.
According to Zamora, a single officer shot at least five shots. He said it was not yet clear how many bullets had struck Gonzalez, who was being treated at an out-of-county trauma center, where he remained in stable condition. Gonzalez’s daughter was not injured but Zamora said he was unsure where the child was during the shooting, believing she may have been in a nearby vehicle.
“I’m just glad that our officer’s safe, that the child is safe, that nobody else in the community was injured,” Zamora said. “I want people to know that we’re dedicated to maintaining open lines of communication with anyone who has information about this, if people are available they need to come forward to talk to us.”
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Zamora said he had not determined whether or not Gonzalez was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time of the confrontation. He said there was no time to seek assistance from a department-assigned mental health liaison and, that in such a high-risk situation, the department might not have wanted to endanger an unarmed clinician.
“There is no time for that. In a perfect world, to slow things down, in that sense,” Zamora said. “But the reality is that what the officer was confronted with and the safety of the child, the safety of that individual himself was pretty critical.”
The department’s most recent on-duty shooting by an officer was the injury of 22-year-old Isaias Aguilar at the Ohlone Parkway and Main Street intersection in September 2018. Aguilar was reported to have been armed with kitchen knives and acting erratically, according to police reports at the time. Before Aguilar, the department’s next most recent shooting was in 2015. The Watsonville police officer who shot Gonzalez was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into his shooting, per department protocol, Zamora said.
The Watsonville Police Department is asking anyone with information related to the case to call 831-417-1151.
