Reading Eagle | By Steve Henshaw and Jason A. Kahl
A shootout that left a 36-year-old Reading man dead apparently was the result of a neighborhood dispute, city detectives said Monday as they prepared arrest warrants for two suspects in the slaying.
Maximino J. Cruz Jr. was killed when shots were fired during a fight about 3 a.m. Sunday in the 1300 block of Mulberry Street, investigators said.
"It sounds like a neighborhood dispute that once again rose to a level that it doesn't have to be," said Capt. Damond M. Kloc of the criminal investigations division.
Cruz, who resided in the 500 block of North Ninth Street, had been visiting someone in the block when he got into a fight outside the house with a man with whom he had previous altercations, investigators said.
Shots were fired, and Cruz was hit.
Cruz ran a short distance before collapsing in a breezeway between houses. Investigators found his body where he fell, with a handgun he is believed to have fired next to his body, Kloc said.
Deputy Coroner Gretchen Weyandt pronounced Cruz dead at 3:48 a.m.
An autopsy was conducted Monday night in Reading Hospital, although results were not available.
Detectives have been working on the case since it happened. By late Monday night, they had gathered enough information to prepare arrest warrants for two city men, charging them with homicide, conspiracy and related offenses.
Investigators were waiting for a member of the district attorney's office to approve the charges. They did not release the names of the suspects, who remained at large.
Kloc called evening-shift detectives to come in early Monday to help in the investigation. He said investigators were trying to gather information from residents about how the fight started and who was involved.
The killing comes just over a year after Cruz's father, Maximino Sr., died of injuries suffered in a fire in his home in the 200 block of South Eighth Street. The father died of smoke inhalation in Lehigh Valley Hospital near Allentown on March 7, 2011, several days after a city firefighter carried him from the burning house.
The city fire marshal's office said the fire was caused by a space heater plugged into an old, inadequate extension cord that set a love seat ablaze.
Less than two hours after Cruz was shot, a 17-year-old boy was shot in a leg while walking in the 400 block of West Oley Street, police said.
According to investigators:
A gray car pulled up beside the teen about 4:30 a.m. Four men got out and accused him of assaulting someone, then tried to grab him.
The boy, whose name police withheld, began to run but was shot once in the left leg. The men got back in the car and drove away.
The teen was treated in Reading Hospital. Police do not believe the shootings are related.
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