The Oakland road rage victim Sunday was 30-year-old Perla Avina, a mother of four who was shot dead in the face after getting into a confrontation with an unknown gunman. Avina was driving south on busy 98th Avenue at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday with her 32-year-old husband, Luis Lopez Gallegos, when the driver of a car beside them opened fire after apparently getting angry with them.
Now, the Oakland road rage victim's family is left grief-stricken as they try to grasp the recent tragedy in their lives.
Aviña was a passenger at the time of the shooting. Her husband, Gallegos, was driving the car when a man on another car apparently got enraged and shot her in the face, the Contra Costa Times reported.
According to police officials, the Oakland road rage victim was struck in the head in the passenger seat after the bullet smashed through the front windshield of the family's black 1998 Toyota Camry.
Gallegos was reportedly driving back from an East Oakland grocery store when the shooting happened, according to Johnna Watson, a spokesperson for the Oakland Police Department.
"We do believe it is road rage based on witness information and what the husband said," Watson told the Huffington Post. "We can't go into the exact details right now because the suspect is still out there, but we do know that there was a confrontation and during that confrontation, the suspect shot at the victim's vehicle [while] the suspect was in a vehicle traveling in the same direction."
"He was a coward with a gun," said Gallegos. "A young guy with a gun who doesn't care about life."
Gallegos added that the driver was unhappy with the way he was driving, and in his anger fired the shots that killed his wife.
Gallegos took his wife, the Oakland road rage victim, to his home first before calling for help. Their home was less than a mile from the store.
"I came to my home because I needed someone to call officers," Gallegos told the Bay Area News Group.
A neighbor, Dwayne Jackson, 54, was outside when Gallegos pulled up the bulle-ridden vehicle.
"He pulled up really abrupt, halfway in the driveway and called to me," Jackson said as he recalled the incident to Bay Area News Group. "He said, 'D, call 911. My wife's been shot.' We pulled her out of the car and I started giving her CPR, but I pretty much knew she was gone."
Spokesperson Watson said it is unknown how Dwayne Jackson, but that the car was hit "multiple times."
Relatives and officers performed CPR on the Oakland road rage victim. However, she died at the scene, reports the SF Gate. Paramedics said there was nothing they could do.
"I just hope that whoever is responsible is seriously sitting there and thinking about what they did," Avina's sister, Esmeralda, told The Huffington Post Tuesday.
"They took a person's life," said Esmeralda "They took a mother, a wife, a sister and a daughter, from many people who loved her. This is very hard on us. I don't know how people are able to do things like this."
Spokesperson Watson told HuffPost that authorities have not yet released a description of the suspect or the road rage incident or his vehicle.
Esmeralda said her sister had four children, three girls, ages 1, 4 and 8, and a 14-year-old son.
Luis Lopez Avina, the Oakland road rage victim's eldest son said his mother was a "joyful, outgoing, ambitious woman. She was everything to me."
He added that his little sisters "don't know what's going on. But my older sister, she's just trying to hold it down, like me."
"Her oldest child got to witness his mom die in front of him," said Esmeralda. "My niece is only a year and a half and she's not even going to know her mother."
Aviña had been married to Gallegos for three years, but their relationship before marriage dates back to their high school years.
"My sister was married almost three years now, but she was with my brother-in-law for 16 years," said Esmeralda, before adding that the couple had been high school sweethearts.
Gallegos described his wife as "the love of my life. No woman can ever replace her, you know? She gave me four beautiful kids. I wish God would have took me before they took her. I wish I would have gotten shot."
Asked about a message to the gunman of his wife, an Oakland road rage victim, he devastatingly responded, "No words for him right now."
"Only God knows," added Gallegos and said his children will always come first. "That's why I'm here," he said.
No suspects have been arrested in the shooting, said police.
A $30,000 bounty is now being offered by the Crime Stoppers of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information in the case is reportedly asked to contact the Oakland Police Department's homicide division at (510) 238-3821 or Crime Stoppers of Oakland at (510) 777-8572.
The family of the Oakland road rage victim was left devastated and at a loss as to what to do next. On behalf of the family, a Go Fund Me campaign has been started to raise money for the woman's funeral expenses, reports the HuffPost. Donations can be made here.
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