Davis residents, UC Davis students on edge after 3rd stabbing in 5 days. ‘I am freaked out’
With three stabbings, two of which were fatal, within five days and no suspect in custody as of Tuesday morning, a tense atmosphere hung over the city of Davis and the UC Davis community.
Police launched an overnight manhunt to search for the assailant in the latest stabbing, reported around 11:45 p.m. Monday at a homeless encampment near Second and L streets, but were unsuccessful. Authorities lifted a shelter-in-place order for downtown Davis around 5 a.m.
Stabbings last Thursday at Central Park and Saturday night at Sycamore Park killed 50-year-old David Henry Breaux and 20-year-old UC Davis senior Karim Abou Najm, respectively. Police said Monday night’s victim, a homeless woman stabbed multiple times through her tent, was hospitalized in critical condition.
Davis residents and university students were going about their business Tuesday morning, but anxiety and trepidation prevailed.
‘I am freaked out about it’
On Tuesday, students said, professors and teaching assistants canceled night classes or moved them online. Some daytime classes were also canceled. Laila Penny and Iris Xu, both 19, walked into their scheduled 1:40 p.m. Arts of Asia class and walked right back out because the professor abruptly decided to cancel the lecture. When the students parted ways, Penny said something she normally wouldn’t have said on a sunny afternoon: “Stay safe.”
Students have been leaning on each other to keep themselves out of danger. Nikki Moreno, a UC Davis student, uses her bike to get around town. Fellow students have sent her emails offering her rides. Three stabbings and no suspect caught has her feeling on edge.
“I am freaked out about it,” Moreno said Tuesday morning as she locked her bike not far from where the first stabbing occurred last Thursday. “I think after this third one, I am more fearful. It doesn’t seem like this is a person who’s targeting people.”
She speculated that whoever this assailant is could be someone suffering from mental illness who needs help and would continue these attacks.
Moreno lives on campus in transfer student housing. She’s supposed to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in genetics and genomes this June, but she’s worried these attacks will make it difficult for students to focus on their studies.
Moreno said some professors have extended deadlines for schoolwork as news reports of the attacks filtered through campus over the past several days. But her midterm hasn’t been delayed.
She’s mainly worried about her fellow students, especially those who commute from other cities in the region and have to walk from the Amtrak station, which is about a half-mile from campus.
She said she longs for the days of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, when students were in hybrid classes and could do some of the work from home. But she said students are looking out for each other, because “at the end, that’s all we can do.”
On Tuesday morning, UC Davis Police Chief Joseph Farrow told KCRA that school leaders were discussing the possibility of moving evening classes online to limit the number of students on campus after dark.
University officials said they expected an update around 2 p.m. but there were no “changes to instruction and administrative operations during the day.”
“Campus buildings are open, administrative support continues and all instruction continues as normal,” UC Davis officials said.
A decision on moving or canceling classes would need to be made by the academic senate, along with university officials.
It seemed like almost everyone was talking about the stabbings in Julio Vasquez’s lab class Tuesday morning. The first-year student didn’t feel as scared as others. Still, the wailing of sirens in the middle of the night had jarred the 18-year-old, who is being more cautious about venturing out in the evening.
Maggie Garza, a third-year linguistics major, had considered not coming to class Tuesday morning but felt a responsibility to do so.
“I’m just being a bit more hesitant,” Garza said, before riding away on a bike.
Residents discuss safety on social media
Minji Kim, a UC Davis researcher, was walking downtown to get coffee Tuesday. Like many, she was awakened around 1 a.m. by alerts of the third stabbing.
“I’m really shocked and scared,” said Kim, who has lived in Davis for 10 years. “I’m not sure if this (assailant) is one person or more.”
After receiving the alert, she logged onto the Nextdoor app, a social media site for residents to share information with their neighbors. Kim said Davis residents were frantically sharing what they knew about the latest stabbing.
“I got up and checked all my windows and made sure they were locked,” Kim said. “I need to be secure.”
She’s exchanged a lot of text messages with her friends over the past several days. They’re warning each other about not going out at night and looking for anything suspicious in their surroundings. Kim said the fear is elevated just knowing that police have not captured a suspect.
As officials scrambled to keep the campus safe — extending Safe Ride services, as well as escorts to walk student around campus — some said they had only received scant information on how to handle the situation.
Graduate student Zack Scovel, 33, said he wished the university would provide more information to instructors, like himself, about how to accommodate students’ needs during the tense time.
“How do we go on with normal if that guy is still out there?” Scovel said.
The university said in a letter to students and faculty Monday that officials shared “concerns over safety in our community,” urging everyone “to be aware of their surroundings and call campus or city police should they have any information to help solve these crimes.”
Maybe it was because of the rain, or the stabbings, but members of a cultural Japanese drumming club didn’t have any competition for a table Tuesday afternoon. Second-year student Fiona Okida said the group was promoting an upcoming event and the club.
“Hearing a little music is helping, and bringing up our spirits,” Okida, 20, said. She and her peers thumped on a drum and played a flute near the Memorial Union.
Okida needed some comfort. “I am feeling unsafe,” she said.
Earlier in the day, she had hugged a friend and cried. The computer engineering major wanted more information from the university about what it did and did not know.
“We’d like to focus on our studies instead of our lives being in danger,” she said.
‘It could’ve been any one of us’
The spate of violence is unusual for the placid college town 15 miles east of Sacramento. The Davis Police Department reported only one homicide in 2022 in the city of nearly 70,000 people.
Penny, an art history major and a fan of true crime podcasts, said the quiet little city seemed rocked by violence almost seemed cliché. “A lot of (those stories) do start with, ‘in a small town...,’” she said. “But it definitely feels like it wouldn’t happen so nearby.”
City and campus police in statements have urged people to travel in groups if they must venture out at night.
Rex Pyles of Davis knew Breaux, the man who was stabbed to death early Thursday at Central Park and a well-known figure known locally as the “Compassion Guy.” Pyles was out for his morning walk Tuesday around the downtown park.
He said news of the third stabbing is shocking, but that residents were already gripped by fear.
“It’s shaken us up,” Pyles said, emphasizing what appear to be victims randomly attacked. “It could’ve been any one of us.”
Police still searching for attacker
Davis Police Department spokesman Lt. Dan Beckwith called the investigations “extremely preliminary,” but said that the suspect descriptions in Saturday’s Sycamore Park stabbing and Monday’s incident at the homeless encampment were similar.
An emergency alert from authorities sent just before 1 a.m. Tuesday said officers were looking for a suspect described as a “light-complected male,” between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-9. Police said the man had a “thin build wearing a black or blue sweatshirt, black Adidas pants with white stripes, black shoes carrying a brown backpack.”
The suspect was last seen running westbound on Third Street from L Street, police said.
In Saturday’s stabbing, which took place near Sycamore Lane and Colby Drive just after 9 p.m., police said they were looking for a man between the ages of 19 and 23 and 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-8, describing him as “a light-skinned male, possibly Hispanic,” with “long curly loose hair.”
