Man dies as bullets pierce door of his Fresno motel room in city’s third homicide of 2021
A man in his early 40s was killed by gunshots through the door of his south Fresno motel room.
Police responded to reports of multiple shots fired about 5:30 p.m. at the Days Inn at Jensen Avenue and Second Street off Highway 99, Fresno Police Lt. Andre Benson said. They found a man with multiple wounds to his upper and lower body; he was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he died.
It is the city’s third homicide of the new year after a major surge in killings in 2020.
An assailant is believed to have fired repeatedly through the door of the man’s hotel room as he stood inside. A woman was also in the room but not hurt. Police at the scene did not identify the victim or the woman.
The victim was identified Tuesday by the Fresno County Coroner’s Office as Mike Salinas, 40, of Chowchilla.
“A suspect from the parking lot area fired multiple rounds toward room 271,” Benson said. “Those rounds went through the door and struck the victim, who was standing on the inside of the door inside the room.”
Shell casings were found in the parking lot. The door of an adjacent, unoccupied room was struck but that bullet did not go through the door.
Police said motel surveillance video was to be reviewed. They also were checking cameras at nearby businesses in an area that includes a Holiday Inn Express, an In-N-Out, a McDonald’s and several other fast-food outlets.
There was no indication that the shooting was related to an earlier report of gunfire at Fresno’s Fashion Fair mall, Benson said.
The motel was believed to be the scene of a deadly shooting in September 2020. Adrian Vindiola, 19, died after he was dropped off at the hospital with a chest wound, apparently as part of an earlier incident in which officers found a man at the motel with a non-life threatening leg injury.
That slaying was one of more than 70 homicides last year, a figure not recorded in the city in nearly 25 years.
Fresno police on Saturday already were investigating a double slaying that occurred on the first day of 2021, as two men were gunned down just before 10 a.m. on East Olive Avenue, just west of Peach Avenue, in the southeast part of town.
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 8:01 PM.
