{"id":40399,"date":"2026-08-12T08:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=40399"},"modified":"2026-08-12T08:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:17:23","slug":"three-minors-charged-in-fatal-shooting-of-53-year-old-socal-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=40399","title":{"rendered":"Three minors charged in fatal shooting of 53-year-old SoCal man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/28b8ab3\/2147483647\/strip\/false\/crop\/1158x864+0+0\/resize\/1158x864!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3f%2F16%2Fad1e1ce7461585f2719849cf22ed%2Fme-kern-county-sheriff-office.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-element=\"story-body\" data-subscriber-content=\"\">\n<p>Three minors have been charged in the fatal shooting  of a 53-year-old man last month in east Bakersfield, Calif., according to authorities. The man\u2019s father was also injured in the gunfire.<\/p>\n<p>On July 18 around 7:25 p.m., Kern County sheriff\u2019s deputies responded to a shooting in the 800 block of Crane Street, according to a Sheriff\u2019s Office news release. Deputies found two people suffering from gunshot wounds; one died at the scene, and the other was hospitalized for treatment. <\/p>\n<p>A 16-year-old was detained in a nearby neighborhood and arrested in connection with an unrelated investigation, authorities said. He was later charged in the Bakersfield shooting.<\/p>\n<p>Detectives identified two other juveniles,12- and 13-year-old boys, as suspects in the shooting, according to the release. The two were arrested July 29 and Aug. 2. All three were charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and participation in a criminal street gang.<\/p>\n<p>The 12-year-old faces additional charges of two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and possession of a handgun by a minor, according to the Kern County district attorney\u2019s office. <\/p>\n<p>The 13-year-old also was charged with assault with a semiautomatic firearm and participating in a criminal street gang.<\/p>\n<p>The 16-year-old faces additional charges of assault with a firearm, possession of a handgun by a minor and carrying a loaded firearm on one\u2019s person\/vehicle, according to the D.A.<\/p>\n<p>The 16-year-old could be tried as an adult, and authorities are waiting for prosecutors to file the motion in court, the district attorney\u2019s office said. <\/p>\n<p>The victim was identified as Eric Lancaster by his father, Vernon \u201cWes\u201d Lancaster, who was also shot but survived, according <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.turnto23.com\/news\/in-your-neighborhood\/bakersfield\/three-juveniles-ages-12-13-and-16-charged-with-murder-in-east-bakersfield-shooting-that-killed-53-year-old-man\" target=\"_blank\">to ABC23<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Authorities didn\u2019t respond to The Times\u2019 request for comment or to identify the victim. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t see my shooter shoot me, but I seen my shooter shoot my son. And it\u2019s the most ugliest thing that won\u2019t \u2014 it won\u2019t go away in my mind,\u201d Wes Lancaster told the news outlet.<\/p>\n<p>Wes said Eric was confronted near the mailbox in front of the house on Crane Street. He said that Eric had no known connection to the suspects. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen my son fell,\u201d Wes Lancaster said, \u201cI reached over as hard as I could to hold his hand and tell him to stay with us, stay with us \u2014 and it was too late. It was too late already.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three minors have been charged in the fatal shooting of a 53-year-old man last month in east Bakersfield, Calif., according to authorities. The man\u2019s father was also injured in the gunfire. On July 18 around 7:25 p.m., Kern County sheriff\u2019s deputies responded to a shooting in the 800 block of Crane Street, according to a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/ae69562\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1158x608+0+128\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3f%2F16%2Fad1e1ce7461585f2719849cf22ed%2Fme-kern-county-sheriff-office.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}