Three men detained in connection to quadruple Salinas shooting.

When the news media gathers for a press conference at the Salinas Police Department in the aftermath of a shooting, the narrative officials present is routinely the same: There are no suspects, and witnesses are refusing to cooperate with police. 

They broke from that routine Friday when Cmdr. Stan Cooper announced in a press conference that three men are in custody and being questioned in connection to a quadruple shooting Thursday night. 

A witness called to report seeing a green minivan drive away immediately after hearing shots fired on Sunrise Street in East Salinas, Cooper said. An officer responding to the crime scene heard that report on the radio, and happened to see a green minivan heading the opposite direction in North Salinas, near Boronda and Constitution. 

He turned around, and followed the vehicle to Santa Rita Street, near Santa Rita Elementary School, where the van stopped and three men fled on foot. 

One was found a few blocks away, walking on Northridge Drive; the other two were found about half an hour later near Boronda Manor. 

"If it wasn’t for the witness that initially put out the description of the van, I seriously doubt the officer [would have turned around to follow them]," Cooper said Friday. "It really speaks to the importance of people seeing things and calling that information in."

None of the three have been publicly named, as the crime is still under investigation and they have not yet been formally named as suspects or charged with a crime. 

Two men, one in his mid-20s, one in his late-30s, died at the scene of the shooting. Two other men were injured and transported to a hospital for treatment; they're both expected to survive, Cooper said.

The four men were standing outside a home on Sunrise Street, between Garner and Del Monte, when the shooting happened just after 9pm. 

Officers on patrol in the neighborhood heard the shots, and within a minute, SPD's new system, ShotSpotter, generated a report of multiple shots fired on the 500 block of Sunrise. 

“It really expedited our ability to get to the crime scene," Cooper said.

SPD called on the Monterey County Sheriff's Office and California Highway Patrol to assist in searching for the three men in the minivan, while SPD's own on-duty officers were occupied by responding to the crime scene itself. With support from CHP and the Sheriff's Office, they doubled their manpower to 40 officers responding.