JJ Vasquez was at his first real job, working at Five Guys in Oxnard, to make money while attending community college when the bullet struck.
The teenage restaurant worker was not the intended target of the 16-year-old who is accused of firing the gun, according to police, but he was hit and critically injured.
Vasquez, a former high school football captain, “is a fighter,” said an aunt who has started a fundraiser toward medical expenses.
The Oxnard Police Department identified him as Jonathan Vasquez Jr., 19, resident of Santa Paula. But his family says he goes by JJ and is 18 years old.
The shooting happened at the Five Guys in the 2700 block of Portico Way, where an altercation occurred outside the restaurant around 8:30 p.m., the department said in a statement Saturday.
Vasquez was taking his break inside inside the restaurant when he was struck, the department said. He was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition.
Police investigators identified the suspect as a 16-year-old Oxnard boy and later obtained a search warrant for a residence in the 500 block of East 1st Street, according to police. The boy has since been booked into the Ventura County Juvenile Justice Center on suspicion of attempted murder, according to the department.
The altercation was between the Oxnard boy and two other unidentified males. Police said the motives for the altercation and shooting were unknown.
Vasquez’s aunt, raising money for her nephew’s recovery, described him as a “diligent, strong, and smart kid.”
He had recently started working his first job while attending Ventura College, she said.
“He is fighting through this,” she wrote on the GoFundMe, which as of Monday afternoon had raised nearly $50,000 out of its $60,000 goal.
Five Guys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Times reached out to Vasquez’s family and the Oxnard Police Department but did not immediately hear back.
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