San Jose: Four men shot in Willow Glen early Sunday morning

SAN JOSE — A man died and three others were injured after gunfire broke out in Willow Glen in the early hours of Sunday morning, police said.

Authorities were called to a report of gunshots on the 2200 block of Lincoln Avenue at 2:58 a.m., according to a social media post from the San Jose Police Department. That block is home to a hookah lounge, a hair salon and a gas station, among other businesses.

When officers arrived on scene, they did not locate any gunshot victims, authorities said. They were later notified that four men self-transported to hospitals, where they received treatment for their injuries.

One man died of his injuries at a local hospital, authorities said Sunday afternoon.

At the scene Sunday, a mobile investigations unit was surrounded by several police cars outside the building housing the hookah lounge and hair salon. The door to the hookah lounge sat open with a red Tesla parked out front. Crime scene tape surrounded Grand Gasoline gas station next door, where a white car was parked. A second white car was wrapped in crime scene tape in a parking spot across the street, which a police sergeant noted that they were holding because they were not yet sure whether it was involved.

Police officers were combing the surrounding streets for evidence.

Amy Duong, 21, and Noah Diaz, 21, heard gunshots ring out around 3 a.m. from their apartment above the hookah lounge and hair salon.

“I didn’t know it was gunshots at first because I’m not usually around that kind of stuff,” Duong said. “It’s a hookah lounge. People are out there drunk, messing around and stuff. I thought they were just popping stuff out there, or throwing stuff against the wall.”

“I literally woke up in the midst of a gunshot,” she added. “I heard like five, six.”

Diaz added that they could not hear an argument or commotion beforehand.

“It was just gunshots,” he said.

Duong and Diaz sheltered inside their apartment until a police officer knocked on the door and asked them to come out, Duong said. They recalled seeing blood splattered on their stairs, and an officer told them, referencing the evidence placards they passed as they walked out, that there had been 15 gunshots fired.

Duong and Diaz were up most of the night giving witness statements to police and still had not been allowed to return to their apartment Sunday afternoon, they said.

Another neighbor, who declined to share his name, recalled hearing “loud” gunshots around 3 a.m. from his house a few blocks over.

The block where gunfire broke out is next to a fire station and across the street from restaurants and businesses, with a preschool and dance academy just up the road. The neighbor said that the neighborhood is pretty safe as a whole, but that the hookah lounge plays loud music late into the night that vibrates the windows of his house. He said they do not often close at their posted time, and he sometimes sees people lingering outside at 7 a.m.

“It doesn’t make anyone here feel safe,” he said.

Duong and Diaz, who have lived in their apartment for a year, agreed that the neighborhood is usually “serene and calm,” Duong said.

“It’s a beautiful neighborhood,” Duong said. “It’s just that specific little vicinity, it gets a little chaotic.”

The hookah lounge hosts events almost every weekend, Duong said. She has heard brawls before, but “it’s never gotten to this.”

“We’ll wake up at five, six, seven to go to work, and there will still be some people there, outside in the parking lot,” Duong added.

Lincoln Avenue between Franquette Avenue and Curtner Avenue was closed for part of Sunday, police added. It later reopened to through traffic.

Authorities ask that residents avoid the area and use alternate routes while police investigate.