By Verbal Adam | OBSERVER Correspondent
Saturday, April 2, 2022 began as a busy but not particularly remarkable day on Sacramento’s K Street corridor. Hip-hop superstar Tyler, the Creator performed at the Golden 1 Center and the pop music group Aly & AJ played the Crest Theater that evening.
As the clock passed midnight, the nightlife scene on K Street began to pick up, but no one could have imagined that the worst mass shooting in the history of Sacramento was about to happen.
The violence is said to have begun with two rival gangs exchanging threats on social media. Around 2 a.m. April 3, the bars along the K Street corridor began to close and a large crowd gathered on the corner of 10th and K streets. The crowd consisted of mostly partygoers and, according to the Sacramento Police Department, at least three armed gang members.
Within a span of four minutes, more than 100 shots were fired into the crowd by rival gangs resulting in six dead and 18 injured. The political response was immediate: President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass new gun control measures; Gov. Gavin Newsom called for stricter gun laws, saying “We cannot continue to let gun violence be the new normal”; Mayor Darrell Steinberg announced an $8.1 million investment to provide better lighting and security along the K Street corridor; and Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, said the city would reinforce public safety by installing more lights and security cameras.
This week, on the one-year commemoration of the shooting, the family of victim Sergio Harris was joined by Leia Schenk, founder of EMPACT; Stevante Clark, founder the IAMSAC Foundation and brother of Stephon Clark; and City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela at a vigil at the site of the shooting. The community response was minimal; the media outnumbered attendees three to one, the mayor was absent, and the city had the tone of business as usual.
“What we would like to see is the same type of sympathy you show for other mass shooting victims, the same type of empathy and care for the other victims of mass shootings whether it be the Sikh temple or Nashville, these families deserve that same empathy and sympathy too,” said Clark, who has lost two of his brothers to gun violence.
“They found out that these former or active gang members were involved in some sort, then I feel like then people kind of disengaged with the story, and I feel like they stopped looking at it as if these were human beings.”
A vigil was held the night of the shooting and the following day a makeshift memorial to those killed was erected. The images of Harris, Johntaya Alexander, Melinda Davis, Yamile Martinez-Andrade, DeVazia Turner, and Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi were displayed on easels surrounded by flowers. The memorial would be vandalized repeatedly over the next few days, with the vandals targeting the images of Harris, Turner, and Hoye-Lucchesi, who were later identified by police as gang members and active shooters. To prevent further vandalization, the images were removed.
The three men also identified as shooters and later arrested are Dandrae Martin, Smiley Martin and Mtula Payton. All three are charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of Alexander, Davis and Martinez-Andrade, who were innocent bystanders; however, they are not charged in the deaths of Harris, Hoye-Luchesi and Turner, who are considered participants in the shooting by law enforcement officials.
The city’s mix of action and inaction has left residents with strong opinions of the area.
One year later, damage from the shooting remains visible. Bullet holes can be found in street lamps on the east side of 10th Street. The building on the corner of 10th and K where the shooting took place, formerly Sharif Jewelers, still bears shards of glass from the windows being shattered across the floor, a constant reminder of the terrible violence that took place there. The building itself is vacant, as are the other three corner buildings of the intersection.
The corner remains a gathering place for the unhoused seeking safe spaces to sleep. Often, those places are the same doorways frightened partygoers hid in the night of the shooting. It was a homeless man named Tim Langer, who was sleeping in one of the doorways on the night of the shooting, who was credited with saving lives by leading people into the doorways and using his own body to shield them. Langer’s family reconnected with him following the shooting and he has since left Sacramento.
Streetlamps provide bright light along the K Street corridor, police patrol the area more often, and longtime staples like Capitol Books and the Crest Theater continue to operate. However, El Santo, the place where many of those injured and killed in the shooting had been, has permanently closed. The block is power washed every morning, and “for lease” signs appear in more and more windows.
While improving the corridor is important, local activists are also calling for an investment into the communities that are greatly affected by few resources.
“We need to support the families in whatever capacity they need,” Schenk told The OBSERVER “It’s not just as simple as saying that person is at fault; for me, it’s a bigger conversation. And those of us who know these communities and those of us who live this life know that our lives aren’t valued. Give us the tools we need to effectively help these families. So many people feel helpless.”