Family seeks clues after California man, 68, slain while watering lawn

Cynthia Rangel says her 68-year-old father was a godly man who would walk away to avoid arguments.

“He taught all four of his kids to just forgive,” said Cynthia Rangel, 37.

Which is why she and her family members are baffled, she said, as to why someone gunned down Michael Rangel as he watered the lawn at their Harmony Lane home in Riverside on Sunday, Nov. 5.

“My dad was a very peaceful man,” Cynthia Rangel said. “He prayed every day.”

Riverside police have released few details on the shooting, even declining to say where the victim was standing when he was shot. No arrests have been announced.

“We don’t have any updates right now, but our Robbery-Homicide detectives are following up on leads in this investigation,” Officer Ryan Railsback, a Police Department spokesman, said Thursday in an email.

Michael Rangel was a retired electronics technician and Army veteran.

He had just finished lunch with some family members on Sunday when he went outside to water, as his daughter said he did every day. Cynthia Rangel said she soon received a call from her niece, who was crying hysterically.

The niece told her that Michael Rangel’s wife, who was in the garage doing laundry, heard gunfire, went outside, didn’t see anything but her husband on the ground, the water still running out of the hose.

Paramedics were treating her father when she arrived, Cynthia Rangel said. She said she counted 28 shell casings on the ground that came from a high-powered rifle.

Cynthia  Rangel made a vague reference to the family having “enemies” but doesn’t believe there were any current disputes. Her brothers are now in their 30s and don’t live at that house.

She said she hopes someone with home-surveillance video that captured the attack will call the police.

“We are waiting to hear from when the streets do talk, and we have not heard anything that would bring justice and closure for our family,” she said.