Student Gunned Down in Hometown

Family members and friends of a UC Berkeley senior were shocked by his death on Sunday night in a Sacramento shooting and said they will remember him as an approachable man who was always smiling.

Rodrigo Rodriguez Jr., a 21-year-old senior majoring in American Studies, was killed outside the House of Skillz barbershop in his hometown at around 6:30 p.m. Police are still following up on leads, but no one has been arrested in connection with the shooting, said Sacramento police Officer Konrad VonSchoech.

Rodriguez, known to his friends and family as Rod, had been working at the barbershop for three weeks, said his father, Rodrigo Rodriguez Sr.

His father expressed disbelief at the shooting and said it did not make sense for his son to be targeted. He was well-liked by the community and had never been involved in violent activities.

“I swear this was not intended for him,” his father said. “This had to be a mistaken identity. This had to have been for either the owner of the shop or someone else.”

Rodriguez was closing the shop after getting tools to cut his older brother’s hair on the evening of the shooting.

The person who shot Rodriguez “came from back of the building, copped a gun, and ran right up to him,” his father said.

Rodriguez’s older brother, Andrew Lopez, was standing by his car about 15 feet away from Rodriguez, waiting for him.

When Lopez saw a man with a gun coming toward his brother, he shouted. The shooter shot Rodriguez, and then began shooting at Lopez, who ducked behind the car, ran and escaped the bullets.

Rodriguez, the youngest of three sons, was close to his family.

He had commuted every weekend for the past three years to spend time with them. After graduating high school with honors, he was the first member of his family to attend college and received a full-ride scholarship that would have covered all his expenses until 2015.

“He did it all on his own,” his father said. “We didn’t pressure him; we couldn’t help him; he was doing his thing. He was going to stay in Berkeley until (2015) and was going to go all the way with a master’s and everything.”

Rodriguez had a passion for cutting hair that started off in his family’s backyard. His backyard business grew as many people in the neighborhood stopped by to get haircuts, so his father began to create an informal barbershop at their house.

“It was going to be called Rod’s Cuts,” said Ronald Page, a UC Berkeley senior and a close friend to Rodriguez. “Rod would cut (hair for) whoever would come by. He had a nice clientele on campus and back in Sacramento.”

Rodriguez was interested in starting his own barbershop business. He wanted to give back to the community after he set up his business. A portion of the money he received would have been used for outreach and awareness, Page said.

“(Cutting hair) was his passion,” he said. “It wasn’t something he did because he had to do it. It’s because he loved it.”

Rodriguez tutored students at Hoover Elementary School in Oakland for three years and worked at the UC Berkeley Student Learning Center.

The students in his Education 198 class this semester will be holding a candlelight vigil tonight at 7 p.m. on Upper Sproul Plaza.

“He was just a simple vision,” Rodriguez’s father said. “If you looked at him, you would have thought this was a really cool kid. He was nice to everyone.”

Brian Whitley of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

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