Trial Underway for Santa Maria Man Accused in 2023 Shootings

A Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury heard sharply conflicting opening statements Monday in the murder trial of Kevin Medrano, a Santa Maria man accused of fatally shooting one man and injuring a second in what prosecutors call a calculated gang hit — and what his defense attorney calls a case of wrongful accusation built on grainy video and no physical evidence.

The trial, being held in Santa Maria, is expected to run approximately eight weeks and stretch into mid-August, according to Noozhawk, which first reported on the proceedings.

A Deadly Night on North Railroad Avenue

The case stems from a shooting just before midnight on Feb. 4, 2023, when the Santa Maria Police Department received multiple emergency calls reporting gunfire in the 400 block of North Railroad Avenue, near its intersection with Fesler Street. Officers arrived to find two adult men with gunshot wounds, according to KEYT and an Edhat report based on a Santa Maria Police Department press release. Both victims were transported to a hospital, but one of them — Robert "Bobby" Valencia, 40, a Santa Maria resident — died of his wounds. The second man survived and was reported in stable condition.

The shooting marked what police at the time described as the first homicide of 2023 in Santa Maria. No arrests were made immediately, and investigators publicly appealed for information for months.

Eight Months Later: An Arrest

The investigation broke open in early October 2023. On the morning of Oct. 4, 2023, detectives from the Santa Maria Police Department Detective Bureau, assisted by the department's SWAT team, served search and arrest warrants at a residence in the 100 block of West Camino Colegio, according to Edhat and KEYT. Kevin Medrano was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail on a warrant for murder. He has remained in custody there without bail since his arrest, Noozhawk reported. Det. Brian Santiago led the investigation for SMPD.

Medrano now faces charges of murder and attempted murder, along with sentencing enhancements alleging the personal use of a firearm and criminal street gang involvement, according to Noozhawk.

'A Gang Hit' vs. 'Charged Wrongly'

The competing narratives laid out in Monday's opening statements set the stage for what promises to be a complex, evidence-intensive trial.

Supervising Deputy District Attorney Catherine Martin told jurors the shooting was deliberate gang violence. She said investigators canvassed the neighborhood after the shooting and collected surveillance footage placing Medrano — whom she said goes by the street moniker "Chiko" — and a black Honda Civic he frequently drove in the area around the time of the shootings. Video and images captured hours before the incident showed Medrano wearing a white sweatshirt with black writing, white pants, and black-and-white shoes, clothing Martin argued closely matched what the shooter was wearing. She also pointed to social media images of Medrano flashing gang signs as evidence of his affiliation with the West Park criminal street gang.

According to Martin's opening, Medrano and a second man walked up to the residence and fired six shots. The intended target, she said, was a rival gang member inside the home — a man identified by the white Cadillac parked in the driveway. Robert Valencia, the man who died, was not the intended victim.

Prosecutors also plan to present cellphone location data to map Medrano's movements around the time of the shooting, Noozhawk reported.

Defense attorney Michael Scott offered a starkly different account. He told the jury that law enforcement never recovered a firearm, ammunition, shell casings, or any clothing connecting his client to the shooting. He described the prosecution's surveillance footage as "grainy" and of poor quality, and argued that without a positive identification of the shooter, there was no valid basis for tying the shooting to a gang crime. Scott also disputed the clothing comparison, asserting that the shooter at the scene was wearing black pants — not the outfit his client had on earlier that evening. He further noted that investigators found no messages sent by Medrano before, during, or after the shooting that referenced the crime. "Mr. Medrano has been charged wrongly," Scott told the jury, pledging to ask for a not-guilty verdict at trial's end.

Late Monday morning, the first witness — a woman who had been visiting the home on North Railroad Avenue that night — took the stand to describe hearing gunshots, discovering her friend on the floor with bullet wounds, and calling 911.

West Park and Santa Maria's Gang Landscape

The trial adds another chapter to a long-running legal battle between Santa Barbara County prosecutors and members of the West Park criminal street gang, which authorities say operates primarily in Santa Maria. Prosecutors and courts across the region have pursued West Park-connected defendants in a series of violent crimes over the past decade. In September 2025, a San Luis Obispo County jury convicted a West Park-affiliated man of second-degree murder for a 2022 stabbing in Oceano, with the jury finding that the killing was committed for the benefit of the gang, according to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office. Separately, a 2021 West Park-related murder case in Santa Maria also resulted in a not-guilty plea and further prosecution, according to Santa Maria Times.

The gang enhancement charges Medrano faces — if proven — could significantly increase any prison sentence beyond the base term for murder and attempted murder under California law.

What Comes Next

With the trial underway and expected to run through roughly mid-August, jurors will weigh a prosecution case built on digital evidence — surveillance video, social media posts, and cellphone location tracking — against a defense argument that the entire identification rests on poor-quality footage and inference. The outcome will be closely watched by North County residents and law enforcement officials who have spent years grappling with gang-related violence in Santa Maria neighborhoods.

Medrano has remained jailed since his October 2023 arrest. A verdict is not anticipated before late summer at the earliest.