Sacramento County Medical Examiner has identified the three women killed as 21-year-old Johntaya Alexander. Melinda Davis, 57; and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21. The three male victims were identified as Sergio Harris, 38. Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and Devazia Turner, 29. One of the victims was identified Sunday. The sound of rapid gunfire around 2 in the morning made people run in terror. Twelve people were injured in the neighborhood that anchored the Golden One Arena, which hosts concerts, and the NBA Sacramento Kings. The team’s home game against the Golden State Warriors continued as scheduled on Sunday night and began with a minute of silence for the victims. Police Chief Kathy Lester revealed a few details from the investigation and asked the public to share videos and other information that could lead to the killers. “The scale of the violence that just happened in our city is unprecedented during my 27 years here,” Lester told reporters at a news conference at police headquarters. “We are shocked and devastated by this tragedy. “But we are also determined as a service to find those responsible and ensure justice for the victims and their families.” Small monuments with candles, balloons and flowers were placed on Monday morning near the crime scene. A balloon had a message that said in part: “You will be forever in our hearts and minds. Nothing will ever be the same. ” Roads were reopened to cars and pedestrians and the police tape had been removed. Aside from a handful of TV cameras, there was little indication of the square’s previous day’s bloodbath. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and other city officials have denounced the escalation of violence in the city, while also urging people to continue coming to the city center for events such as NBA games and Broadway musicals “Wicked.” “We can never accept it as normal and we will never accept it,” Steinberg said of the shooting. “But we must also live our lives.” The shootings erupted shortly after the clash broke out on a street full of luxury hotels, nightclubs and bars, and police said they were investigating whether the altercation was linked to the shooting. A video of witnesses posted on social media showed rapid gunshots for at least 45 seconds as people screamed and ran to cover themselves. The shootings surprised sleeping guests at the Citizen Hotel, which included a wedding party, and fans of rapper Tyler the Creator, who appeared at a concert hours earlier. From her window on the fourth floor of the hotel, 18-year-old Kelsey Schar said she saw a man running while shooting a gun. He saw flashes from the gun in the dark as people ran to cover. Schar’s girlfriend, Madalyn Woodward, said she saw a girl who appeared to have been shot in the hand lie on the ground. Security guards from a nearby nightclub rushed to help the girl with something resembling napkins to try to stop the bleeding. Police found a stolen pistol and are investigating whether it was used in the shooting. The dead include three men and three women. Authorities were still working to alert family members and had only publicly identified one victim as of Sunday, 38-year-old Sergio Harris, without giving a cause of death. Of the 12 injured, at least four were seriously injured, according to the Sacramento Fire Department. Sunday’s violence was the third time in the United States this year that at least six people have been killed in mass shootings, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. And it was the second mass shooting in Sacramento in five weeks. President Joe Biden called for action on gun crimes in a statement on Sunday. “Today, America is once again mourning another community devastated by armed violence,” Biden said. “But we must do more than mourn. we must act. “ On Feb. 28, a father killed his three daughters, a attendant and himself at a Sacramento church during a weekly surveillance. David Mora, 39, was armed with a makeshift semi-automatic weapon, although he was under a restrictive measure prohibiting him from possessing a firearm. The crime scene on Sunday spread to two blocks in the city, closing a large part of the city center. The corpses remained on the sidewalk all day as Leicester said investigators worked to work out a “really complex and intricate scene” to make sure investigators gathered all the evidence they could to “see the perpetrators of this crime be brought to justice “. Katie Valenzuela, a council member representing the region, said she had received numerous phone calls reporting violence in her district during her 15 months in office. She cried in a press conference as she told reporters that the last phone call woke her up at 2:30 in the early hours of Sunday. “I’m cracked and angry,” he said. “Our community deserves better than that.”
Associated Press writers David Clapper in Providence, Rhode Island, and Stephanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
