SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Santa Clara County authorities Wednesday were investigating a shooting that left one man dead and a family thankful to be alive after a stray bullet ripped through their living room.
Eric Griffin said he was in his family’s home late Tuesday night when he heard gunfire.
“I heard a gunshot – the main thing was to make sure my family was okay,” he told KTVU. “It’s a house full of women… There are six of us (in the home). I have my elderly uncle who lives there, my cousin who is 18 (and) my aunt and cousin. It was scary, scary -- pretty scary.”
Griffin said the stray bullet ripped through the home living room.
“It went through the front window into the side wall,” he said of the bullet’s trajectory. “The police are checking to see if there were more.”
Santa Clara County deputies responding to calls of shots fired at about 10:50 p.m. near the intersection of Madeline Drive and Staples Avenue in the Alum Rock neighborhood of San Jose discovered a young man lying in a pool of blood on a sidewalk.
“I think he was in 24-25,” Griffin said. “He’s a young guy. He still had a lot to go.”
Another neighbor, Lydia Alchonda, told KTVU that she was shaken by the fatal shooting.
“My husband and I were asleep in the back of our house and we heard 5-6 shots and then heard a car go by,” she said. “We thought it might be fireworks...It’s pretty scary. I have an 8-year-old who rides his bike up and down the street.”
Investigators remained on the scene early Wednesday looking for clues in the case. There was no word on possible suspects or motive.
“Unfortunately, that’s all we really have right now,” said Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Don Morrissey. “We received several reports of gunshots and are talking to those people now to see what they have seen and heard.”