A year later, mourners of Sacramento’s deadliest shooting pause to remember
A downtown Sacramento intersection exploded in gunfire a year ago Monday leaving behind the deadliest shooting in the city’s history.
A year later, victims’ families, local activists and clergy gathered at this intersection Monday to mourn, call for an end to the gun violence and reclaim the names and legacies of those who lost their lives that day — lives they say were tarnished when the mass shooting in the early hours of April 3 was later characterized as a gang shooting.
Six people were killed just after closing time at 10th and K streets, 2 a.m., the morning of April 3, 2022. The oldest was 57, the youngest, 21, slain in the hail of bullets. Another dozen were wounded in the rampage.
The dead: Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21, who came up from Selma for the music in the city; Melinda Davis, 57, of Sacramento, who often slept in the doorways of businesses on K; Sergio Harris, a 38-year-old father of three from North Highlands; his cousin, DeVazia Turner, 29, a father of four; and Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32, a father of six visiting from Salinas; and Johntaya Alexander, weeks away from her 23rd birthday.
Harris’ mother, Pamela Harris, father Fred, and two of Sergio Harris’ children stood at the podium in front of a jewelers’ storefront near where son Sergio once lay. They were flanked by community activist Stevante Clark, who just days earlier marked a somber anniversary of his own, remembering brother Stephon Clark’s death; and Leia Schenk of the community organization Empact.
“He had a mother. He had a father. He had siblings. His life mattered. And all of their lives mattered. They had a life here on Earth that was taken from them,” Schenk said. “This is what gun violence does to our community and this is the remnants of it. We’re here to talk about the life and legacy of who Sergio was because that’s what matters.”
On Monday, Clark joined the voices calling for an end to the bloodshed.
“This was a mass shooting and there were numerous shootings after that,” Clark said. “We have to do more than stand together to prevent these shootings from happening over and over again.”
Gun violence had moved from troubled Sacramento neighborhoods to the heart of downtown, local activists said. The shock of the sudden carnage had galvanized the city but that soon changed, Stevante Clark told The Bee ahead of the anniversary of the shooting.
Dandrae and Smiley Martin, 26 and 27, and Mtula Payton, 27, remain in custody in connection with the shootings and are scheduled to return to Sacramento Superior Court for a hearing June 2. Police say the Martins and Payton and the men they killed had gang ties.
“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,” Clark said. “And I feel like they stopped looking at it as if these were human beings.”
But on Monday, Harris held two of her son’s children close as she challenged the gathered crowd to remember her son as she does.
“You don’t know who he was — who he was to us,” Harris told reporters. “They didn’t know Sergio. He’s not no gang member. He was our son. He will always be in our heart. My son was my son. Period.”
Bee Staff writer Ariane Lange contributed to this story.
