A Putnam County jury has convicted Ramon Gomez-Hernandez Jr. on all charges tied to a June 30, 2023 shooting on Kane Road in Palatka that left one person dead and two others seriously wounded, and a judge has now sentenced him to life in prison. Gomez-Hernandez was 16 at the time of the shooting, and prosecutors say DNA evidence recovered from a ski mask, a handgun and a crashed vehicle's steering wheel proved central to tying him to the killing.
According to the State Attorney's Office, the jury found Gomez-Hernandez guilty as charged of first-degree murder with a firearm, two counts of attempted second-degree murder with a firearm, aggravated assault with a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a juvenile delinquent. Prosecutors say Gomez-Hernandez drove up to a planned fight on Kane Road that day and opened fire on a crowd, striking three people. One victim died while being rushed to the hospital by a witness, while the other two survived with serious injuries that they are still dealing with long-term, per the same office's account.
Ski Mask And Gun Left Behind In A Crashed Car
After the shooting, Gomez-Hernandez crashed the vehicle he had driven to the scene and fled on foot, leaving the car behind, the State Attorney's Office says. Investigators with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office obtained a search warrant for the vehicle and, inside, found a cell phone belonging to Gomez-Hernandez, a black ski mask, and a loaded handgun, according to the same account.
Ballistics testing matched the ammunition in that handgun to cartridge casings recovered at the shooting scene, prosecutors say. Florida Department of Law Enforcement testing further found that DNA recovered from the vehicle's steering wheel, the handgun and the ski mask all matched Gomez-Hernandez's DNA profile, per the same source. As News4JAX reported, detectives were able to identify Gomez-Hernandez as the suspected shooter on Feb. 20, 2024, based on laboratory results from that forensic evidence.
Prosecutors, Sentence, And An Unresolved Review Period
Chief of Homicide Jason Lewis and Assistant State Attorney Alexander Gilewicz prosecuted the case for the State of Florida, according to the State Attorney's Office. Gomez-Hernandez faced mandatory life imprisonment upon conviction for first-degree murder, the office notes. State Attorney R.J. Larizza addressed the outcome following the sentencing hearing, saying, “There is no justification for this crime – only contempt bathed in grief,” as reported by Action News Jax.
Action News Jax reported that because Gomez-Hernandez was a juvenile at the time of the crime, his sentence will be reviewed in 25 years. A separate excerpt from Florida's statutes, however, states that a juvenile offender sentenced to a term of 20 years or more under a specified provision is entitled to a review of the sentence after 20 years — though it is not established whether that particular provision controls in this case. Florida law does require that a child found to have committed an offense punishable by death or life imprisonment be sentenced as an adult, and any sentence imposing adult sanctions on a transferred juvenile is presumed appropriate, according to the state's juvenile justice statute.
Gomez-Hernandez has been described in coverage as linked to a “Young Guns” investigation, though the case materials reviewed do not establish whether that label reflects a formal gang designation or an investigative name. As Tampa Free Press noted in its coverage, the case underscores how forensic evidence — DNA, ballistics and physical evidence left behind at a crash scene — can anchor a homicide prosecution even when a suspect flees on foot.
