The grieving widow of a man shot and killed in a random attack on a Los Angeles bus says he was a loving husband and father — and now she wants answers about her husband’s death.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that Juan Luis Gomez Ramirez, 32, was riding a Metro bus on the 108 line in Commerce just before 5 p.m. last Friday when suspect Winston Apolinario Rivera, 30, boarded the bus and sat behind him.
When the bus came to a halt, Gomez-Ramirez got up to leave, but Rivera put a gun to his head, shot him dead and fled the scene, according to prosecutors. Rivera was found hiding under a train a few blocks away, arrested and later charged with murder.
Gomez Ramirez was shot and killed while in the United States on a tourist visa with his wife and 17-month-old son on his way from work to a temporary residence.
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Juan Luis Gomez Ramirez was shot and killed on a Los Angeles Metro bus last week, and his widow, Salahi Lopez, is trying to find out what happened. (Fox 11 LA)
His widow, Salahi Lopez, told Fox News Digital that the family was in the city to visit his mother and brother, who were meeting their son for the first time. She said the young family plans to return to Mexico in July, where she and her husband will return to their jobs as special educators.
“He was a very responsible man who always cared about his mother, his children, his wife and his family,” Lopez said in an interview with Fox News Digital, translated by his lawyer. “It’s very painful to think that someone who was such a good person can no longer live his life.”
The couple had been together for 12 years before Gomez Ramirez died last week in the 6200 block of Slauson Avenue, about 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Lopez said he’s frustrated that police are slow to provide answers.
“Police are inconsistent in their explanations of what did or didn’t happen,” she said.
Lopez said she would never have come with her family to the United States if she had known the dangers that awaited her husband, and she is vowed to find justice for him.
Juan Luis Gomez Ramirez and his son.
“Just because we are tourists doesn’t mean we don’t get attention or respect. Anyone who is suffering like this deserves justice,” she said.
“And I want to know why. [something like this was] Did we allow it to happen, and was it preventable?”
The deadly shooting happened just hours after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials met to discuss a recent surge in violent crime on the transit system.
The Commerce shooting was the fourth attack on Metro buses and trains this week, while a man was stabbed in the leg on a Metro bus in Lynnwood on Tuesday.
Lopez’s lawyer, Mario Acosta Jr., said public transportation in Los Angeles is not safe. He pointed to the stabbing death of a 67-year-old woman from Nicaragua on a Los Angeles subway train last month, who had reportedly been saving money to return to her home country and see her family.
“It’s an undeniable fact that the LAPD and the LASD receive $150 million a year to police the subway, including the buses and trains, but I don’t know what that money is being used for, because it’s clearly not being used to protect people like Juan Luis,” Acosta told Fox News Digital.
Acosta said there was no evidence that Gomez Ramirez knew the suspects or was involved in any wrongdoing.
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Police are inspecting the bus where Juan Luis Gomez Ramirez was shot and killed last week. (Fox 11 LA)
Police have not released much information so far, and he doesn’t know if the bus was equipped with surveillance cameras, he said.
The lawyer said he believes Gomez Ramirez sensed something was wrong and stood up to move away from Rivera when the suspect sat back down.
“I thought, ‘Something’s wrong. I need to get out of here,'” Acosta said of the victim.
“So he tried to get off the bus, but before he could get off the bus the killer killed him and tried to escape,” the lawyer said.
Acosta also said he has no idea why the murder occurred and knows nothing about the suspect.
“We don’t know anything about him. We don’t know if he was here legally or illegally, if he has a criminal record, nothing. We don’t know anything except his name. This poor family only came here thinking they’d be here for a few months and now look where they are.”
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón called the murder a “tragic and senseless shooting.” [that] “It took the life of a beloved husband and father who was innocently riding a subway bus.”
Juan Luis Gomez Ramirez and Salahi Lopez (offered)
Acosta said Lopez became concerned about her husband’s whereabouts when he didn’t come home that night. His iPhone tracker showed him going to the hospital and then returning to the crime scene. Police returned to the scene with his phone and belongings, Acosta said.
The lawyers noted that airline passengers are much better protected and said authorities needed to do more to protect passengers from dangerous people on buses.
“You could actually get that person off the plane, right? But the bus has absolutely no authority, absolutely no way to stop this from happening,” Acosta said. “There’s literally nothing to stop someone with 100 guns, bombs or whatever from getting on the bus.”
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He suggested consideration should be given to requiring bus drivers to carry firearms and having police officers on board as a deterrent.
Meanwhile, Acosta said he is working to obtain long-term visas for Lopez and his son to stay in the US, and has set up a GoFundMe to help ease the family’s financial burden, which has raised about $13,000 so far.
But Lopez said she can’t think about the fundraiser while she searches for answers about what happened.
“Getting information has been my main concern over the past few days,” she said.
“I feel like I have an obligation to seek justice, not just for me, but for other people who have suffered what I’m suffering right now, losing loved ones to these types of issues on public transport.”
