A Salem man was charged Wednesday with murder in connection with a fatal shooting Tuesday in Polk County.
Jonathan Alexis Gonzales-Salcido, 24, was charged with second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon in Polk County Circuit Court, according to court documents.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office responded around 11:34 a.m. to a report that a tree had fallen on a man on Belvedere Street Northwest in Salem, and that the man was screaming and blood was “coming out of the male’s back,” a probable cause affidavit said.
The report added that the man had been shot in the abdomen and was on the ground when injured.
The sheriff’s office received an additional call from a woman who said she heard a shot then screaming. A few minutes later, she said she saw a man run through a field toward Hidden Valley Drive Northwest to a wooded area, grab a red sweatshirt and put it on, adding that he was possibly the suspect.
The report said victim, Ryan Ray Muniz, 31, was confirmed dead around 14 minutes after the initial report, and a sheriff’s deputy detained Gonzales-Salcido around nine minutes later.
The deputy reported he saw Gonzales-Salcido with a hoodie pulled down tight over his head and a gaiter face mask pulled high on his face, pushing a mower in a front lawn and pushing it up the sidewalk.
The deputy asked Gonzales-Salcido where he was going, to which he replied he was going to mow lawns in the area.
The deputy said Gonzales-Salcido appeared to be on a stimulant and asked numerous times not to be shot.
While transporting him to the Polk County Jail, the deputy said Gonzales-Salcido “offered him $5,000, numerous times, to let him go,” according to the affidavit.
Detectives learned Gonzales-Salcido and Muniz were part of a tree trimming service working on Belvedere Street with two other people at the time.
The two workers told detectives they were cutting a tree and as it fell, they heard three pops and saw that Gonzales-Salcido was gone. One worker said he saw Muniz immediately hold his chest and saw that he was bleeding, adding that he saw Gonzales-Salcido running between two houses.
The owner of the tree trimming service told the deputy that out of the blue, Gonzales-Salcido had asked him to drive his personal car to the worksite so he could leave from the job, which the owner declined. The owner added that Gonzales-Salcido “sulked for a minute and left,” the affidavit said.
The sheriff’s office later found a 9mm handgun along the path Gonzales-Salcido would have taken when he fled the scene.
The affidavit noted that Gonzales-Salcido had been previously convicted of vehicle theft and evading a peace officer in California in 2016 and was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
A jury trial for Gonzales-Salcido’s case is scheduled for Nov. 4, according to court records.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
