The Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) is offering $100,000 to anyone who can identify the young man caught on surveillance footage shortly before shooting a marijuana dispensary owner last November. According to an SAPD press release today, anonymous donors have assembled the cash in the hope that the shooter, a male of unknown race believed to be in his 20s, of “thin build” and about 5-foot-six-inches tall, can be identified and arrested.
The shooting took place at about 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2015 just outside one of Santa Ana’s licensed marijuana dispensaries, South Coast Safe Access. As the Weekly reported last December, the victim, who asked to remain anonymous, says he was sitting in his car at the end of the shift when the man began shooting at him. The first shot grazed his shoulder, the second nicked his hip, the third missed, and the fourth bullet struck his liver. The suspect then fled on foot. After being taken to the hospital, the victim was placed in a medically-induced coma, and has since recovered from his injuries.
As we noted at the article, Santa Ana’s policy for licensed marijuana dispensaries does not allow for armed security guards despite the fact dispensaries handle a large amount of cash on a daily basis. According to the victim, prior to being shot, he had complained to the city about this policy. Although a security guard was standing nearby, he wasn’t armed. If he was, the victim says, the shooting would have never happened. “My guy would have plugged him,” he argued.
SAPD has made a short video of the shooter available on Youtube. Below are three more images of the suspect. Anyone with information is urged to contact SAPD’s Homicide Section at 714-245-8390. 
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).