Two months after a 19-year-old Honduran immigrant was fatally shot on a BART train, police on Wednesday released surveillance video of a man with a specific waddle-like walk, who they believe is the key homicide suspect.
BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said police have linked the man in the video by eyewitness accounts to a fight with the victim before the shooting, leading them to believe he is responsible for the Jan. 9 homicide of Carlos Misael Funez-Romero of Antioch. The teen was shot several times on the train at the West Oakland station. His parents said he was on his way to their house to San Francisco for dinner, but never made it.
The agency originally released five still images of the suspect following the homicide, three of which were taken from the newly released video. Trost said police decided to release the short video clip on Wednesday to "remind folks we still need help identifying him.'
Funez-Romero's parents told NBC Bay Area in January that they believed their son and the suspect may have gotten into an argument while both were aboard a Tri Delta Transit bus in East Contra Costa County before the shooting. Both then boarded the BART train at the Pittsburg-Bay Point station.
The horrible irony for the family? The teen had recently moved from Honduras to the Bay Area, his family said, because they thought it was safer.
"It feels like someone cut off my arm," Father Andres Funez said nine days after his son was killed. "He was my right arm."
The suspect is described as a light-skinned African American man, 6’0” to 6’4” tall, with a bald or shaved head. He was wearing an Army-green hooded jacket with beige, construction-style boots. And he walks with a very specific waddle.
Local
The video released came from BART platform. The San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report after the homicide that not all of BART security cameras on the actual trains were real.
Inititally, BART refused to detail just how many of those cameras were decoys.
But after NBC Bay Area and the Chronicle filed a public records request, BART data revealed on Feb. 9 that 70 percent of the cameras on board the trains were fake, and another 7 percent were not in working order.
After a major public outcry, BART vowed to install new, real, cameras on the trains at a cost of $1.4 million. The exact timetable for when they will be installed has not yet been released.
BART is offering a reward of up to $10,000.00 through Oakland Crime Stoppers for any information that may help lead to an arrest.
If anyone has information, the direct number for leaving an anonymous tip is 510-464-7011. BART investigators can also be reached at 510-464-7040. Oakland Crime Stoppers can be reached at 510-777-8572.
