Family of man killed at Salinas protest calling on witnesses to come forward

Central Coast News reporter Ricardo Navarro spoke with the brother of the man killed Wednesday amid a protest in Salinas.

Salinas police on Thursday identified the man shot to death as 23-year-old Constantino Garcia. An officer who tried to perform CPR was hit in the head with a bottle as he was attending to Garcia, and Garcia later died.

Marco Garcia told us he and his family just moved here a couple of weeks ago. His brother Constantino had just arrived Saturday with his wife and child, and he planned to work in the strawberry fields.

Marco Garcia says he and his family weren’t part of the protest that was going on Wednesday night.

He says he and his brother went to go to a nearby store to buy some bread, and they stood to watch the protest for a minute.

He says he isn’t sure what happened, but all of a sudden Constantino was lying on the ground.

Now he’s angry because dozens of witnesses saw the shooting but no one has come forward.

“Please help us to find these people,” Marco Garcia said. “My brother didn’t have any trouble with anyone. With who? He’d only been here for two, three days. I ask the community to help. “