Breaking News: Police find materials glorifying gang involvement in Raya's bedroom
Andres Raya was listening to gangster rap music and reading a book glorifying gang and drug involvement shortly before the 19-year-old Marine gunned down two Ceres police veterans Sunday night, investigators said this morning.
Before leaving Camp Pendleton last weekend, Raya told fellow Marines he wanted to buy an SKS assault rifle, Stanislaus County sheriff’s Lt. Bill Heyne said. When Raya’s comrades pointed out that such a rifle is illegal, Raya replied that this weapon could penetrate a police vest, Heyne said.
Toxicology reports revealed Raya had “a significant amount” of cocaine in his bloodstream when he shot two police officers outside a Ceres liquor store, Heyne said.
Because of these and other findings, investigators believe “gang ties that were very deep and very strong” influenced Raya’s plot to ambush police, according to Ceres Police Chief Art de Werk.
Raya, a Marine who worked as a Humvee driver, did not engage in combat during his seven-month stint in Iraq, according to Heyne, the lead investigator.
This undermines an original theory that post-traumatic stress from combat triggered Raya’s shooting rampage, Heyne said. But Raya did see a fellow Marine injured when a road bomb exploded under a vehicle in his convoy, Heyne said.
The book investigators discovered in Raya’s bedroom titled “Midst of My Confusion” is written by Sir Dyno, a notorious Nuestra Familia gang member now under federal indictment for racketeering, Heyne said. Throughout the book, law enforcement officers are referred to as pigs, he said.
Meanwhile, Raya’s friends and family insist that Raya, a Ceres High School graduate, was not a gang member, though he may have hung out with gang members from his neighborhood.
Everardo Padilla Jr., a 30-year-old warehouse worker who says he grew up with Raya said:
“It doesn’t matter what people read, or if they listen to gangster rap. Nobody really knows what went on inside Andy’s mind. But the war had a big influence on whatever he did after he came back.”
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