Elk Grove names 100th park in memory of Sikh grandfathers slain 10 years ago
Ten years after the deadly ambush shootings of two Sikh grandfathers on their afternoon walk shook Elk Grove, the city has dedicated its 100th park to their memory.
Singh and Kaur Park on Ponta Delgada Drive in the city’s Laguna Ridge area honors 65-year-old Surinder Singh and Gurmej Singh Atwal, 78. The friends were slain March 4, 2011, in a drive-by shooting during their afternoon walk along East Stockton Boulevard.
The shooter drove a gold or tan pickup truck and pulled alongside Singh and Atwal before firing on them in midday with a semiautomatic handgun, witnesses said.
Their gunman has never been found.
“It was definitely a tragedy,” said Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, the first Sikh woman in the nation to be directly elected mayor, in a video produced by the city on the park’s dedication. “Two elderly gentlemen, Mr. Singh and Mr. Atwal, were murdered as they were on a peaceful walk through their neighborhood.”
In March, Singh-Allen, flanked by other local leaders at Elk Grove City Hall, invoked Singh and Atwal’s memory in condemning hate targeting the Asian American Pacific Islander community: “I have seen the ugly face of hate,” Singh-Allen said. “We need action.”
Elk Grove City Council later passed a resolution to denounce hateful acts and rhetoric against the AAPI community and support steps to combat it.
“What I would say is, this park is representing two innocent souls,” said Atwal’s son, Kamaljit Atwal, in the video. The short film is one in a series on Singh and Kaur Park that honors the men’s lives, the Sikh community’s roots in Sacramento County’s second-largest city and the creation of a park years in the making. Cosumnes Services District and City of Elk Grove combined to build the park.
Designs informed by Sikh culture adorn the marker greeting people to the park. Statues of a lion and a lioness with her cub claim space on the park grounds. The name Singh translates to “lion;” Kaur means “lioness,” or “princess.”
“It’s not only a reminder that the Sikh community has deep roots in Elk Grove, but also in the greater community,” Singh-Allen said.
It also represents the efforts of an entire community, said community member Amar Shergill in the video presentation.
Hundreds of residents in Elk Grove’s Sikh community and the broader city horrified by the deadly shooting successfully petitioned city leaders in 2016 — five years after the killings of Singh and Kaur — to name a park in their honor.
That same year, 2016, Elk Grove City Council proclaimed Elk Grove a “No Place for Hate” city, carrying the message at civic events and through social media.
Today, the park is “symbolic and a reminder that we value our Sikh culture and all of our diverse cultures that make up this great city,” said cCity Councilman Darren Suen. “Our city is no place for hate.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 7:41 AM.
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