Further information was released today in the shooting of a 19-year-old man in Orcutt by an off-duty police officer on March 25. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office stated that the young man, Manuel Reyes Rios of Santa Maria, was killed at the scene of an altercation involving eight people in the parking lot of the Melody Market on East Foster Road, based on the investigation thus far and surveillance camera video.
At around 8 p.m. that Saturday, two vehicles with four occupants each had pulled up to the market, and Rios was in one of the cars. An off-duty officer with the Santa Maria Police Department soon pulled up in his car, which held his family; a fourth car holding a woman and two children arrived next.
The officer, who is not named, went into the store, as did the woman from the other car. The press release does not specify whether the family or children were in the vehicles or in the market.
