Just after 4 a.m. Sunday, people living in the Penn West neighborhood of Indio, woke up to the unexpected. Neighbors say they heard as many as eight or nine gunshots in their neighborhood.

After speaking with the Indio Police Department, they told me the investigation started when they responded to a call of a person with gunshot wounds found in front of a home on Cardinal Avenue in Indio.

“I heard like five shots and I said.. they’re just messing around out there.” says neighbor Phillip Gallegos Jr.

“And then I heard like, four or five more… and I said… oh man that don’t sound right… until I heard crying, from the mother… my son, mi hijo, like oh man, something happened.”

The Indio Police Department received a call moments later about a man, shot.

“That’s when I came out all barefooted, no shirt, and it was really cold in the morning, but I looked down the street. I was like, oh, man, that’s not right. It’s not good at all.” Gallegos Jr. says.

By the time the police arrived, the victim was dead.

Gallegos Jr. says once he heard gunshots, he didn’t want to look outside.

“And before I came out I heard somebody running down the sidewalk… after it happened, running real quick…that’s when I say something happened.”

Many of these residents have lived here the majority of their lives.

“You never know. Especially in the neighborhood, you never know what’s gonna happen… or what day it’s gonna happen, or what time it’s gonna happen, it’s sad it happened that early in the morning.”

Right now investigators are still piecing together evidence gathered at the scene.

Working to determine the motive and eventually arrest a suspect.

We’ll be following this story for future updates.

Indio Homicide Under Investigation