Davis police questioning ‘person of interest’ as part of investigation of stabbings
Thursday afternoon update
Davis police announced the arrest Thursday of a suspect in three stabbings that left two men dead and a woman critically injured in the past week, a 21-year-old former UC Davis student who may originally be from Oakland.
Davis police Chief Darren Pytel said Carlos Reales Dominguez, who was a student at UC Davis until last week, was arrested Thursday afternoon on two homicide and one attempted homicide charge.
Original story
Police on Wednesday afternoon were questioning a “person of interest” as part of the investigation into three recent stabbings in Davis that killed two men and seriously wounded a woman.
Officers detained the person after 5 p.m. who was spotted near Colby Drive and Pine Lane, about a block west of Sycamore Park where a UC Davis student was stabbed to death Saturday night as he was walking home.
Lt. Dan Beckwith, a spokesman for the Davis Police Department, said the “person of interest” was not detained and voluntarily went with officers down to police headquarters for questioning.
Michael Shearer, a retired arborist who has lived in Davis since 1998, said he saw police detain the person of interest Wednesday evening.
Person encountered near Sycamore Park
“There was a guy walking along and a whole bunch of police cars came down Pine Street and they stopped a guy who fit the description, carrying a backpack,” Shearer said. “There wasn’t any altercation, but they talked to him for five or 10 minutes and then they put him in the police car and they drove away.”
Shearer said that he has been concerned about safety for himself and his children since the stabbings began last week.
“I would bike by here almost every day,” Shearer said as he stood in Sycamore Park not far from a makeshift memorial for Karim Abou Naj, the 20-year-old UC Davis student who was stabbed to death Saturday night.
“I was very worried,” he said. “I stopped biking and I started driving because in a big blue truck, I am safer.”
Police: Not yet a suspect
Beckwith said the department was taking the “standard investigative steps,” and this person had not been linked to any of the stabbings. He said the department has taken in multiple “persons of interest” for questioning in this investigation since Sunday.
Shearer acknowledged that police have not confirmed the person of interest as a suspect.
“I mean, they detained him, so it might be, it might not. And there might be copycat crime, other people, it might not be one person.
“So, it’s very, very scary. I’ve been in Davis since ’98 and this is the scariest it’s ever been.”
Shearer, who was walking his dog, Luna, near the memorial for the slain student, said the spate of stabbings had frightened the entire community.
“Everybody’s terrified,” Shearer said. “Really, I mean, this isn’t normal, and it’s so arbitrary. You just don’t know.”
‘I wouldn’t be back here if I were him’
The area where the person of interest was picked up is a quiet, leafy, tree-lined neighborhood one block from Sycamore Park.
Shearer said that if the person is the suspect, he was surprised that he would have returned to the scene to one of the scenes of the fatal stabbings.
“I wouldn’t be back here if I were him. That makes no sense. So he must have a mental illness or some problem.”
Also on Wednesday afternoon, the Police Department announced that investigators have collected “biological evidence” from each of the three crime scenes and were analyzing the material to determine potential sources. No suspects have been identified.
This is a developing story; check back with sacbee.com for updates.
