EAST PALO ALTO — The last suspect in a deadly 2022 shootout at a city park teeming with children has been arrested, following several criminal indictments being handed down in connection with the daytime gun battle, authorities said.
The shooting was reported the evening of May 17, 2022 at Jack Ferrell Park, involving several men opening fire with several bystanders on scene. Four men were hit; one of them, Ralph Fields Jr. — a cousin of Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver and East Palo Alto native Davante Adams — died at the hospital.
Early on, East Palo Alto police emphasized that the shooting was not random, and tallied 33 shots fired between three rounds of gunfire. A week after the shooting, police announced that two people had been arrested.
Police said an investigation, which came to involve the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, Atherton police and the U.S. Marshals Service, eventually identified four suspects: East Palo Alto residents Miguel Bracamontes, 21, and Luis Mariscal, 38; Michael McNack, 20, of Union City; and Bobby Williams, 49, of San Francisco.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the shooting appeared to be the result of a chance encounter at the park between two groups with an existing conflict. Police added that Bracamontes, Mariscal and McNack were on one side and exchanged gunfire with Williams, who was wounded in the battle.
On Wednesday, authorities announced that the four men were indicted by a criminal grand jury Aug. 4 on multiple charges related to the shooting, including assault with a deadly weapon and discharge of a firearm with gross negligence. By the time the indictment was issued, all of the suspects other than McNack were already in jail custody for unrelated charges. Marshals arrested McNack at his home Tuesday.
Absent from the indictment are any homicide-related charges directly related to the death of Fields. Wagstaffe said prosecutors evaluated the case for potential murder and manslaughter charges, but concluded that the rapid unfolding of the shootout prevented them from gathering sufficient evidence to prove criminal responsibility in Fields’ death.
“We cannot discern from witness statements and the limited video, and cannot prove that people were not acting in self defense, one way or another. It was really a chaotic scene,” Wagstaffe said, adding that the evidence “did support people carrying weapons they were not supposed to be carrying, and the other charges.”
The four defendants were scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in a Redwood City courtroom. East Palo Alto Police Chief Jeff Liu lauded the investigative effort and its “mission to hold every gunman accountable for their decision to fire guns in a park full of kids.”
