LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Friends and community members are coming together to offer help to the family devastated by the Clearlake Oaks shooting this week.
The early Thursday morning shooting at the Elem Indian Colony, which appears to have been motivated by a domestic dispute, took the life of Theresa Brown, and injured Robert and Stephanie Brown, and a 6-year-old girl.
Authorities have arrested 24-year-old Ezequiel Bravo of Clearlake for the shooting, as Lake County News has reported.
He is being held in the Lake County Jail on $1 million bail for murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and assault with serious bodily injury.
Bravo, who was looking for his estranged wife, went to the home of her parents, Robert and Stephanie Brown, shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday, the sheriff's office said.
While there, he fatally shot his wife's aunt, Theresa Brown, 45, and also shot and wounded his wife's parents and the 6-year-old girl. While authorities have not identified the girl, family and friends say she is Theresa Brown's daughter.
When she tried to go for help, Stephanie Brown was forced at gunpoint into Bravo's vehicle, but she escaped in the car and drove herself to the hospital after he went back in the house.
As a result, he would steal Robert and Stephanie Brown's van, later abandoning it nearby, authorities said.
When authorities recovered the van, they found a firearm inside of it. Sheriff's Lt. Corey Paulich said he could not yet confirm that it was the murder weapon, as it still must go through testing by the California Department of Justice to make that determination.
Shortly after the shooting, Robert Brown and the child were flown by separate air ambulances to out-of-county trauma centers for their injuries.
Bravo was caught about seven hours after the shooting at Pomo Elementary School, where a school official who had seen a Nixle alert sent by the sheriff's office spotted him and called authorities.
Sheriff Brian Martin told Lake County News that Stephanie Brown had minor injuries from the shooting and was treated at a local hospital, but the injuries for Robert Brown and the child were more significant.
“They're expected to survive but they have pretty serious injuries,” he said.
With Brown's family now in the midst of dealing both with loss and the recovery of loved ones, a family friend, Deya Ammar, this week began a fundraiser to help them.
The fundraiser's GoFundMe page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/ah-support-for-the-jones-family .
Ammar, said he's known Theresa Brown for about 15 years, and she was like a second mother to him.
He is best friends with Theresa Brown's oldest son Norris Jones, who Ammar said is “trying to hold it together for everybody else.”
A member of the Elem Indian Colony, Brown had a zeal and positive energy that Ammar said shined brightly in the lives of many who knew her.
He's now trying to get some help for her five children – two sons and three daughters who he said range in age from 6 to 27 – who now are dealing with the loss of their mother. Ammar said he had the family's approval before launching the fundraiser.
The family was facing a tough time even before the shooting. Ammar said Theresa Brown's mother had just died before Thanksgiving.
“They have a lot of support from family members all over, but just emotionally, they're not doing very well,” Ammar said.
He said family members also have been visiting Robert Brown and the child who was wounded, who Ammar confirmed is Theresa Brown's youngest daughter.
“She was right next to her mom when it happened,” he said, noting the traumatized child has not talked about much, and hasn't made any mention of the shooting.
The family hopes to bring the little girl home from the hospital soon, Ammar said.
The online fundraiser has a $10,000 goal. As of early Saturday morning, it had raised $2,300.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.