Erick Alcantar Vega, a 32-year-old Hispanic/Latino man from Hillsboro, Oregon, was killed during the early morning hours of November 12, 2022. At approximately 3:45 a.m., Hillsboro police officers were dispatched to a report of a shooting near Southeast 10th Avenue and Southeast Walnut Street. When officers arrived, they found Vega on the sidewalk outside the Dunes Motel suffering from a gunshot wound.
Officers immediately attempted lifesaving measures, but his injuries were fatal and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Hillsboro Police Department's Detective Division took over the investigation and treated the shooting as a homicide. In the days immediately following Vega's death, investigators disclosed relatively little about what had led to the gunfire. Police did, however, say that they believed Vega and the person responsible for shooting him knew one another, suggesting the attack was not believed to have been a random encounter. Detectives initially withheld information about a possible suspect while continuing to interview witnesses and develop evidence.
The investigation produced an arrest less than two weeks later. On the evening of November 22, 2022, authorities located Francisco Rafael Vasquez-Gomez of Cornelius near Forest Grove. Vasquez-Gomez, who was 39 at the time, was taken into custody at approximately 9:00 p.m. without incident. The operation involved the Hillsboro Police Department along with the Washington County Sheriff's Office, Forest Grove Police Department, Cornelius Police Department, and the Washington County Tactical Negotiations Team.
Following his arrest, Vasquez-Gomez was lodged in the Washington County Jail on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with Vega's death. Police did not publicly explain what specific evidence led detectives to identify Vasquez-Gomez as the alleged shooter, nor did the early reports describe a motive, the circumstances of the interaction immediately preceding the shooting, or what investigators believed happened between the two men outside the motel. Authorities continued to describe the homicide investigation as ongoing after the arrest.
The publicly available news reports and Hillsboro Police information located for the case document Vasquez-Gomez's arrest and the second-degree murder allegation, but do not provide a subsequently reported trial verdict, conviction, acquittal, plea agreement, or sentence arising from Vega's killing. The clearest publicly released account therefore remains that Vega was fatally shot outside the Dunes Motel on November 12, 2022, and that investigators later arrested Vasquez-Gomez as the suspect and accused him of second-degree murder.
