One K Street witness was hit by gunfire; another prayed for her life as shots rang out
Tricilla Griffin sensed a growing tension in the crowd leaving the District 30 nightclub at 10th and K streets in downtown Sacramento, but she shrugged it off — until the shooting started, sending her running up 10th Street to J Street. She had been hit. Good Samaritans drove her to UC Davis Medical Center.
Four years later, she still carrieds a bullet fragment in her lower back from the chaotic scene.
Dena Burch did not witness the shooting, but she huddled with her nieces in prayer on the floor of a downtown parking garage as the roar of gunfire sounded around them.
Just moments before, she and her nieces had been taking snapshots at the corner of 10th and K streets. Minutes later, she testified, someone appeared to tip off the violence to come.
“I heard the corner isn’t safe now,” Burch said she saw someone say.
She returned when the shooting ceased to check on her nieces’ friends. She found the dead and wounded instead.
“I saw a few people lying on the ground,” Burch testified Wednesday on the second day of the K Street mass shooting trial in Sacramento Superior Court. “Some people that were getting help; some people not getting help.”
Dandrae Martin and Mtula Payton each face three murder charges in the shootings at 10th and K streets early April 3, 2022, that killed six people including three bystanders, wounded 12 others, and plunged hundreds more into terror as they fled the violence just as K Street’s bars and nightclubs emptied at closing time.
Bystanders Yamile Martinez, 21; Johntaya Alexander, 21; and Melinda Davis, 57, died in the shootings. Families and friends of the victims sat in the rows behind Martin and Payton.
The three others slain in the gunfire early April 3, 2022, Joshua Hoye-Lucchessi, 32; Sergio Harris, 38; and Devazia Turner, 29, were involved in the shootout, Sacramento County prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say a shootout between gang rivals led to the killings. Attorneys for Payton and Martin say they were fired upon in a spontaneous burst of violence and shot back in self-defense.
Griffin, subpoenaed by prosecutors to take the stand Wednesday, recalled the evening. She and a girlfriend arrived early to District 30, about 9:30 p.m. It was a favorite spot. Griffin knew a party host and bartender there, she testified. The scene was “very lively. People mingling, talking, enjoying the night.”
But, Griffin said, the mood changed as the night went on.
“It’s hard to explain the tension. It was unsettling — a feeling of something ‘off,’ she told prosecutor Megan Eixenberger. “People were being very aware of their surroundings. People were still mingling, enjoying the night, but were feeling uneasy.”
Eixenberger steered Griffin to the moments inside the nightclub before the shooting and her description to Sacramento police at UC Davis Medical Center. The prosecutor repeatedly said Griffin recalled men “crowd ducking” to avoid being seen and grabbing at their waistbands. Griffin said she may have been mistaken and did not remember telling a Sacramento crime scene investigator that detail.
Griffin left District 30 as the club closed and stopped by a 10th Street hot dog vendor. The vendor looked about nervously as he packed up his stand. The sight worried Griffin, she testified. She heard the first gunshots moments later. The shots sounded close and scared her, she said.
“I was running down 10th Street a couple of feet when I was hit,” Griffin said. She managed to reach J Street, where she found a couple sitting in a parked car.
“I asked for help. They took me to the hospital — UC Davis.” Griffin had “a burning pain” from the wound, but made a quick assessment: “I didn’t think it would be fatal. I was still walking, breathing, moving,” she testified. Griffin spent the day in the hospital and was released.
Inside a 10th Street parking garage, Dena Burch was praying for her life and that of her nieces. Hours earlier, she had tagged along for a night on the town. Now, she was clutching their hands, leading them from the sidewalk to the garage as shots rang out.
“We decided we’d take the stairs and prayed that we didn’t get shot, because the elevator was too slow,” Burch testified.
Testimony continues Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court.
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