Two brothers arrested after massacre in Sacramento entertainment district | Abroad

More than a hundred bullets were fired Sunday morning (local time) in downtown Sacramento. The gunfight began near bar closing time — around 2 a.m. — in the streets around the Sacramento Kings basketball club sports center, not far from the Capitol. There were many people on the street then. Reportedly started the shooting after a fight in one of the bars. Witnesses mentioned two gunmen.

A day later, the police reported the arrest of 26-year-old Dandrae Martin. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a loaded weapon as a convict. Dandrae Martin has to appear in court for the first time today.

Police also reported the arrest of his brother, 27-year-old Smiley Martin, today. He was arrested in the hospital. Smiley Martin was transported to a hospital with the ten injured after the shooting. He had serious injuries. When he is recovered, he is taken to prison. Smiley Martin is suspected of illegal possession of weapons and possession of a machine gun, the AP news agency reports based on the police report.

Young Martin is known to the police. He was convicted in 2016 for aggravated assault and in 2018 for a drug offence. Prohibited possession of weapons and theft are also on his criminal record. Court records show that in 2016 he pleaded guilty to beating, kicking and choking a woman in a hotel room when she refused to work for him as a prostitute, according to the AP news agency.

Dandrae Martin had been incarcerated for a year and a half for violating his probation, but was released from an Arizona prison in 2020. The actual sentence was ten years in prison. Prosecutors at the time wrote in a letter to those dealing with early releases that they should not release Dandrae Martin. Martin’s criminal record is violent and long. He has committed several offenses and clearly has little respect for human life and the law.”

His brother Smiley started a live stream on Facebook on Saturday, a few hours before the shooting, in which he can be seen with a firearm. The authorities are now investigating, among other things, whether that firearm was used during the shooting. They believe the brothers were in possession of stolen firearms. Houses have been searched in several places.

Incidentally, 31-year-old Daviyonne Dawson was also arrested yesterday for illegal possession of weapons in the area of ​​the shooting. For the time being, the police do not assume that he played a role in the shooting or that his weapon was used.

Six people were killed in the shooting. They are three men – Sergio Harris (38), Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi (32) and De’vazia Turner (29) – and three women – Johntaya Alexander (21), Melinda Davis (57) and Yamile Martinez-Andrade (21 ). Ten others were injured, four of them seriously.

Witnesses provided police with more than 100 videos and photos. “The investigation is very complex, with many eyewitnesses, videos and other forms of evidence,” said prosecutor Anne Marie Schubert.

It was the second mass shooting in the capital of California in five weeks. In late February, there was a shooting at a church in a suburb of Sacramento. A man shot and killed four people, including three of his children, before committing suicide.

Gun violence has increased dramatically in many places in the US since 2020. More than 4,300 people have been killed by deliberate gun violence in the US this year, excluding suicides, according to gunviolencearchive.org statistics. There have already been 117 major shootings in the country in 2022, mass shootingsin which there were at least four victims without counting the perpetrator(s).

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