Many county cases involve youths killing youths; gangs, drugs play role
By Ryan Lillis - rlillis@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, January 16,
Even as the region saw a significant reduction in deadly crime in 2007, a startling trend emerged among the victims: More young people were killed with guns in Sacramento County last year than in any other year in the past decade.
Many of the cases involved the young killing the young, according to law enforcement officials and arrest records analyzed by The Bee, and the deadly violence continues into 2008.
On Tuesday, Sacramento prosecutors filed two counts of murder – along with a gang enhancement – against a 15-year-old boy in connection with a double slaying last week in the city's Colonial Village North neighborhood.
The suspect, Frank Camacho, will be tried as an adult. He is the 16th teenager arrested in connection with a Sacramento homicide since the beginning of last year, records show.
Camacho's alleged victims were 18 and 22, authorities said. A third man, the 18-year-old brother of one of the victims, was shot in the neck but is expected to survive, according to police.
Many of the shootings from last year resulted from gang warfare, which sparked intense local and federal gang crackdowns throughout Sacramento.
Last year, 27 people who were 21 or younger were shot to death in Sacramento County, the highest number for that age group in any of the past 10 years, according to records compiled by the Sacramento coroner's office and local law enforcement agencies.
That number represents the sixth straight year in which the number of young gunshot victims stayed the same or increased, and is more than twice the number in that age group killed by gunfire in 2001.
For teens, the numbers were even more alarming. Of the 13 teenage homicide victims in the county last year, 12 were shot to death, records show. Gangs or drugs played a role in at least half of those killings, detectives said.
The average age of a suspect arrested in connection with killing a teenager in 2007 was 18.4, records show.
"It's a nightmare for a patrol officer that every time you stop a 15- or 16-year-old you think they may have a gun," said former Sacramento Police Chief Albert Nájera, who retired earlier this month.
"The single most dangerous person out there is not a hardened parolee, is not a guy who just got out of Pelican Bay (State Prison). It's that 16-year-old male out there who has a gun because they're not calculating at all. They just react.
"You give a 16-year-old kid a gun, what does he want to do with it?"
By Ryan Lillis - rlillis@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, January 16,
Even as the region saw a significant reduction in deadly crime in 2007, a startling trend emerged among the victims: More young people were killed with guns in Sacramento County last year than in any other year in the past decade.
Many of the cases involved the young killing the young, according to law enforcement officials and arrest records analyzed by The Bee, and the deadly violence continues into 2008.
On Tuesday, Sacramento prosecutors filed two counts of murder – along with a gang enhancement – against a 15-year-old boy in connection with a double slaying last week in the city's Colonial Village North neighborhood.
The suspect, Frank Camacho, will be tried as an adult. He is the 16th teenager arrested in connection with a Sacramento homicide since the beginning of last year, records show.
Camacho's alleged victims were 18 and 22, authorities said. A third man, the 18-year-old brother of one of the victims, was shot in the neck but is expected to survive, according to police.
Many of the shootings from last year resulted from gang warfare, which sparked intense local and federal gang crackdowns throughout Sacramento.
Last year, 27 people who were 21 or younger were shot to death in Sacramento County, the highest number for that age group in any of the past 10 years, according to records compiled by the Sacramento coroner's office and local law enforcement agencies.
That number represents the sixth straight year in which the number of young gunshot victims stayed the same or increased, and is more than twice the number in that age group killed by gunfire in 2001.
For teens, the numbers were even more alarming. Of the 13 teenage homicide victims in the county last year, 12 were shot to death, records show. Gangs or drugs played a role in at least half of those killings, detectives said.
The average age of a suspect arrested in connection with killing a teenager in 2007 was 18.4, records show.
"It's a nightmare for a patrol officer that every time you stop a 15- or 16-year-old you think they may have a gun," said former Sacramento Police Chief Albert Nájera, who retired earlier this month.
"The single most dangerous person out there is not a hardened parolee, is not a guy who just got out of Pelican Bay (State Prison). It's that 16-year-old male out there who has a gun because they're not calculating at all. They just react.
"You give a 16-year-old kid a gun, what does he want to do with it?"
