Report on homicides in California shows how deadly 2020 was in Sacramento County
The number of homicides in Sacramento County climbed into triple-digit figures last year, the first time it reached that mark in 10 years, as the COVID-19 pandemic surged and brazen gun violence took the lives of innocent bystanders including children.
A report released Thursday by the California Attorney General’s Office indicated 100 homicides were reported in the county last year, an increase from 78 killings reported in 2019 and 71 in 2018. The closest the county has come to 100 homicides in the past 10 years was 92 in 2015 and 87 in 2016, according to the state report.
The number of homicides throughout California increased 31% in 2020, the same year hundreds of thousands of new guns were purchased at record levels in the state, according to annual data released by the California Department of Justice.
When identifying causes for the dramatic rise in homicides, law enforcement officials and community activists have pointed to brazen gun violence, mental health, domestic violence and the effects of a shutdown to keep people home and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The number of homicides last year in the county is much higher, based on reports from local agencies. There were 122 homicides last year in the county compared to 92 in 2019, Sacramento County Coroner Kimberly Gin said Thursday.
Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn has called 2020 a year that was “kind of like a perfect storm,” and there was no simple answer or reason as to why so many people were killed last year. Gang violence, which Hahn said has always been a problem in the region, continued last year, along with domestic violence.
In 2020, eight victims lost their lives in domestic violence homicides in Sacramento County, two of whom were killed in what authorities called a murder-suicide situation. The year before, eight more people died as a result of domestic violence, including a woman who was shot in her home by her ex-boyfriend before he turned the gun on himself.
And Hahn also noted that coronavirus restrictions last year took a lot away from youths and others, such as sports and school activities.
Berry Accius, a Sacramento community activist who works on violence prevention and intervention with youths, has said last year’s spike in homicides was the result of the COVID-19 pandemic revealing the fragile and “broken system” of poverty and neglected communities.
Accius, founder of Voice of the Youth, said that the pandemic created a lot of idle time for young people in distance learning from home. He said that created much more time for them on social media, where even some of the well-behaved young people were creating fake “volatile personas” that eventually led to violent confrontations.
Brazen shootings throughout the county made headlines last year as innocent victims were struck by stray bullets.
Over four days in early October, six shootings in the Sacramento area killed five people and injured several others. Among those victims were two children: Makaylah Brent, 9, who was killed, and a 6-year-old girl who was injured after they were struck by stray gunfire on a Saturday afternoon at Del Paso Heights’ Mama Marks Park.
On the same afternoon, a man shot three people before turning the gun on himself at the East Market & Restaurant-Sharq in Arden Arcade. The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said Hassibullah Shams Hassib, 33, opened fire on the three victims at the market. He died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Abdul Mobin Andishmand, 19, and Shujauddin Omarkheil, 27, were both students at American River College in Sacramento and refugees from Afghanistan seeking a better life with their families in the United States when they were killed at the El Camino Avenue market.
There were also the shooting deaths of Dewayne James Jr., 19, and his brother Sa’Quan Reed-James, 17, who were shopping at Arden Fair mall the day after Thanksgiving when gunfire erupted. Video footage of the mall shooting reviewed by The Sacramento Bee showed members of two groups of young men, one member in each group armed with a handgun, who fired at each other as bystanders ran around 6 p.m.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 4:15 PM.
