Mesa police increase reward to $40K for shooter who killed toddler

PHOENIX — Mesa police have increased the reward for information that leads to the arrest of a shooter who killed a toddler and wounded several people in Mesa last month.

The department is offering $40,000 after Sebastian Duran, 1, and three other children and three adults were injured in a shooting Oct. 16 near Dobson and Guadalupe roads.

They were among a crowd of diners gathered near one of the food trucks in a parking lot.

Duran died in a hospital Oct. 18.

Injuries of the other victims ranged from severe to minor, Mesa police said, but those hurt worst were expected to survive.

The Mesa Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives each initially put up $10,000 in reward money.

Witnesses told police the suspects drove up in a white Kia Soul or box-type SUV around 9:30 p.m., and opened fire from the middle of Guadalupe Road.

A worker at one of the food trucks shot back at the car, which then fled the scene, heading toward Tempe, Police Chief Ken Cost said in a press conference video posted online following the shooting.

Cost said hours before the shooting, a couple was arguing in the parking lot and a man got physical with a woman. Vendors intervened. Investigators don’t know if the incidents are related.

“We’re not ruling anything out,” Cost said at the press conference.

Anyone with relevant information is asked to call police at 480-644-2211 or leave a tip anonymously at 480-WITNESS or online.

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