Police said the men were found on East Santa Clara Street near South 15th Street, and detectives were still working the scene Friday.
SAN JOSE, CA — Two men died after a shooting late Thursday in San Jose’s Naglee area near downtown, where officers answered a 10:11 p.m. report of a person shot and found both victims on the 700 block of East Santa Clara Street, police said.
By Friday, the case had become the latest deadly shooting to test San Jose investigators during the first months of 2026. Police had released few details beyond the time and place of the attack, and they had not publicly identified the men, named a suspect or explained what led to the gunfire. The immediate stakes were basic but urgent: identify the dead, trace what happened in the minutes before officers arrived and determine whether the shooting was a targeted act, a dispute or something else entirely.
Police said officers were sent to East Santa Clara Street after someone reported that a person had been shot. When they arrived, they found two adult men suffering from gunshot wounds. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Through the early morning hours, officers shut down Santa Clara Street between South 14th and South 16th streets as detectives processed evidence and tracked movements in and out of the area. Later Friday, surrounding streets reopened and the investigation narrowed around South 15th Street. NBC Bay Area reported that detectives remained in the area Friday morning, while ABC7 said the crime scene centered on the Sacramental Native American Church property near the intersection. A San Jose neighbor, Kevin Narimatsu, told ABC7 the killing was the first violence of that kind he had seen so close to home in the decade he has lived nearby.
Witness accounts offered only fragments. One woman told KTVU she heard people arguing before a car sped away. Other neighbors told the station they did not hear gunfire and were stunned when police tape and patrol vehicles filled the block. KTVU also reported that officers went door to door asking residents whether they had heard or seen anything that could help detectives build a timeline. As of Friday evening, police had not said whether the shooter was on foot or in a vehicle, whether more than one weapon was used, or whether the victims knew each other. They also had not said if surveillance video had been recovered from homes, businesses or city systems in the area. The names of the men were still being withheld pending formal identification and notification through the Santa Clara County medical examiner’s office, a standard step in homicide cases. That left a wide gap between what residents saw overnight and what officials were ready to confirm publicly.
The shooting unfolded in a part of San Jose that sits close to downtown and mixes homes, apartment buildings, religious properties and busy commuter routes. That setting helps explain why the police response quickly widened beyond a single address. East Santa Clara Street is a major east-west corridor, and road closures at 14th, 15th and 16th streets disrupted regular traffic while detectives worked in daylight. The location also gave the case an unusually public feel. Residents woke to blocked intersections, marked units and investigators gathered near an apartment building on 15th Street. Narimatsu told ABC7 he was still processing the news because such violence was not something he associated with the block. For neighbors, the scene was both familiar and suddenly altered: a stretch of street used for routine travel had become a homicide scene, and the ordinary landmarks around it became reference points in a criminal investigation whose basic facts were still incomplete.
The case also lands against a year in which San Jose had already recorded several homicides before mid-March. Police said a 17-year-old was fatally shot Feb. 1 in the 1500 block of Winchester Boulevard, a case in which two suspects were later arrested. A week later, officers responded at about 2:20 a.m. to the 100 block of Paseo de San Antonio downtown, where two adult men were found with gunshot wounds and pronounced dead at the scene. Police said that case was being treated as the city’s second and third homicides of 2026. On Feb. 24, officers were called to a commercial parking lot in the 500 block of El Paseo de Saratoga, where an adult woman and an adult man were found shot. Investigators later said the man, identified as Edgard Altamirano, had confronted the woman, shot her multiple times and then killed himself. Those earlier cases do not establish a link to Thursday night’s shooting, but they show how often homicide detectives had already been mobilized this year before the newest double killing on East Santa Clara Street.
What happens next is more procedural than dramatic, but it will shape the case. Detectives will work to identify the victims formally, map the final movements of both men, collect camera footage and compare witness statements against physical evidence recovered at the scene. Ballistics testing, autopsy findings and a closer review of phone, vehicle and location records could help narrow whether the attack was planned or followed a fast-moving argument. If investigators identify a suspect, the case could move quickly to arrest and booking in Santa Clara County. If not, police will likely lean harder on neighborhood interviews and digital evidence. By Friday, however, no charges had been announced and no arrest had been disclosed. The most immediate public milestone is the release of the victims’ names by the medical examiner, followed by any statement from the San Jose Police Department that clarifies whether the shooting is believed to be isolated or whether investigators see any broader threat.
The scene itself left a strong impression because of how little noise, some neighbors said, seemed to precede the discovery. One resident told KTVU she heard arguing and then a vehicle leaving fast. Others said the gunfire never registered with them, which can happen in dense city blocks where indoor sounds, traffic and distance blur what people think they heard. Narimatsu’s comment to ABC7 captured another part of the mood: not panic, but disbelief that the violence unfolded steps from homes where people have lived for years. By Friday, the yellow tape was starting to come down on some parts of the street, yet the larger uncertainty remained. Police had confirmed the deaths, marked the perimeter and started the methodical work of evidence collection, but the central questions still had no public answer: who fired, why the men were targeted and whether the argument described by a witness was the cause of the shooting or only the last thing anyone heard before the street fell quiet again.
The investigation remained active Friday, with two men dead, their identities still pending and San Jose police expected to release further details only after detectives and the medical examiner complete the next steps in the case.
Author note: Last updated March 13, 2026.