As flowers and candles filled the streets of downtown Sacramento a day after a mass shooting killed six people and wounded 12 others, police announced they had arrested a man but revealed little about his identity and the role played in the shooting.
Dandre Martin, 26, was booked early Monday on suspicion of assault with a firearm and being a felon in possession of a weapon. Police said detectives and SWAT teams had executed search warrants at three homes, but where and what they had obtained were kept secret.
Early Tuesday, police announced they had arrested a second suspect: Martin’s brother. In a statement, police said 27-year-old Smiley Martin was one of those seriously injured in the early Sunday morning mass shooting and remained hospitalized in police custody.
He will be booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail for “possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun” as soon as he is released, police said.
Police said they had recovered more than 100 shell casings from the street and from buildings, very close to a busy strip of nightclubs just blocks from the state Capitol, in the country’s worst mass shooting this year.
In a rare statement Monday, Sacramento County Prosecutor Anne Marie Schubert had clarified that her office expected “further arrests in this case” and stressed that Dandre Martin “had not been arrested for any homicide related to this incident.” Schubert noted that the investigation is “very complex, with the participation of many witnesses, videos and important physical evidence.”
On streets near the crime, residents and workers, some heartbroken, stepped on shards of broken glass and walked past boarded-up windows, while relatives of the victims – whose names were released by the Sacramento County Coroner on Monday They dealt with their pain.
The youngest victims were two women, Johntaya Alexander and Yamile Martínez-Andrade, both 21 years old. The oldest, Melinda Davis, 57, was a well-known homeless woman on K Street, where she often slept. Those who knew her described her as “very nice” that she liked to mix with the clients of the bars when they left at closing time.
The three men killed -Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; Devazia Turner, 29; and Sergio Harris, 38, were described as loving parents.
Sacramento city leaders and elected officials gathered in a downtown plaza Monday night for a candlelight vigil honoring the victims.
Elexus Harris, sister of Sergio Harris – one of six people killed in the Sacramento mass shooting early Sunday – helps light candles at a vigil Monday night.
(Anita Chabria/Los Angeles Times)
Turnout was sparse, but down the street from the scene of the shooting, an informal gathering of relatives took over the corner, where Sergio Harris’ children helped light dozens of candles in small paper cups.
Authorities said seven of the 12 hospitalized victims had been released Monday, while five were still being treated for gunshot wounds.
John Alexander, father of Johntaya Alexander, said he couldn’t stop thinking about the image of his daughter’s body lying lifeless in the street.
John Alexander with his daughter Johntaya, one of six people killed in the Sacramento shooting.
(Courtesy of John Alexander)
He always sleeps with the phone near his bed in case one of his daughters calls. So when her phone rang just after 2am on Sunday, she answered it almost immediately and heard the panic in Ella Johntezha’s daughter’s voice. She told him that she was holding her younger sister, Johntaya, in her arms.
“Dad,” he told him, “Taya was shot.”
“You’re lying,” he said in disbelief.
He jumped out of bed, put on his clothes and headed for the bar district. When Alexander arrived, he saw someone trying to revive a man who had collapsed on the ground.
Then her eyes went to her daughter. Her beautiful, strong-willed daughter, whose name was a combination of hers and her older sister’s, whose energy she shared. Her daughter, who adored her nephews and dreamed of one day becoming a social worker so she could work with children.
“He was already gone,” Alexander said quietly. “Lifeless”.
Johntaya, he said, would have turned 22 on the last day of the month.
“He was just starting his life,” she said, sobbing. “Stop all these senseless shootings.”
A friend of Martínez-Andrade lamented that her friend also seemed to have her whole life ahead of her.
“A lot of people were hurt by this, because she was always smiling and getting along with everyone,” said Katelynn Sánchez, 23, who knew Martínez-Andrade from Selma, a farming town near Fresno. “Many people enjoyed the good atmosphere that she created. She was one of those people you meet and instantly like.”
Sánchez said that Martínez-Andrade and another friend had gone to Sacramento on Saturday night to see Tyler, the Creator and Kali Uchis. Sánchez had stayed home because it was her daughter’s birthday.
Martinez-Andrade, who worked for her brother’s landscaping company, was devoted to her family and “was really caring,” Sanchez said. “She loved her mother very much. She was a very good daughter.”
“I was very young,” Sánchez added.
Friends and relatives of the three murdered men spoke of the loss to their children.
“His children were everything to him,” said a friend of Hoye-Lucchesi. The friend, who asked not to be named, said the 32-year-old was “very active and a very good father.” He was also a loving and reliable friend, he added, always present in times of crisis.
On Sunday, a man named Frank Turner was photographed in downtown Sacramento being turned away by police while searching for his missing son. On Monday, the Sacramento County Coroner confirmed what the Turner family had already heard: Devazia Turner was one of the people shot to death.
Frank Turner, center, steps away after Sacramento police officers did not allow him to search for his son Sunday at the scene of the mass shooting. Authorities confirmed Monday that Turner’s son, Devazia Turner, 29, was one of six people killed in the shooting.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
Devazia Turner’s wife and sister described the 29-year-old father of four in similar terms: happy, energetic and with a talent for making others smile.
“Everyone loved him,” said Syerra Mathis, his wife.
He “just wanted to love you,” his sister added. “He was just a good person. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve it.”
Mathis said he spoke to Turner an hour before the shooting to find out when he would be home.
“He told me to go to sleep,” Mathis said, breaking down in tears. He later received a call from someone who was with him at the time, breaking the news.
Fred Harris Jr., 41, described his younger brother, Sergio, as a “pretty nice, well-liked guy,” saying that in addition to his two daughters and son, he also loved his car, shoes and drinking. champagne.
“Everyone is going to remember Sergio,” he said. “He was just a nice guy, well liked in the community. He did everything for everyone”.
Sacramento police stressed that their investigation is ongoing. Officials declined to answer questions about whether others responsible for the shooting are still at large, after the police chief described the deadly incident as involving multiple shooters.
Court documents show that the man they arrested – whose name is also listed as Dandrae Martin on some public documents – has an extensive criminal history.
In 2014, records show, he was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against a spouse or partner in Riverside County and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Two years later, he was convicted of attempted aggravated assault in Maricopa County and served time in an Arizona prison.
Authorities search the area of the scene of a multiple-death mass shooting in Sacramento, California. Sunday, April 3, 2022.
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
As police continued to process evidence and workers tried to get back to work, a block away state employees went to work at the Capitol.
The Assembly closed its session on Monday in memory of the victims. And in Washington, President Biden pointed to the incident as an example of the need for more action on gun control.
“We know that these lives were not the only ones affected by gun violence last night,” the president said in a statement. “And we mourn equally for those victims and families who don’t make national headlines.
“But we must do more than cry; we must act”.
Garrison reported from Sacramento and Winton, Mejia and Gerber from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Anita Chabria in Sacramento and Erika D. Smith in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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