SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Officers cleared crime tape and evidence markers early Monday morning in downtown Sacramento, reopening streets in the area of 10th and K streets a little more than 24 hours after the deadliest mass shooting in the history of California’s capital city.
No suspects are in custody after at least 18 people were struck by gunfire shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday, as crowds of people were leaving bars and nightclubs around closing time, the Sacramento Police Department said Sunday.
Six died at the scene — three men and three women, Police Chief Kathy Lester said. Twelve others others were transported or self-transported to hospitals with “varying” degrees of injuries. It was not known how many of those injuries may be serious or life-threatening.
Authorities confirmed there were multiple shooters, Lester said in a Sunday afternoon news conference at the Police Department headquarters, and a stolen handgun was recovered from the scene.
Dead bodies stayed on the streets, covered, for more than 18 hours. Coroner’s officials removed at least three of them at about 8:30 p.m.
Lester said the bodies remained at the scene for so long in order to maintain the integrity of a sprawling, complex crime scene for an incident in which multiple suspects are still at large.
The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office on Sunday evening officially released the identity of one victim: Sergio Harris, 38, of North Highlands; the remaining five victims have not been named pending notification of family. A father interviewed by The Sacramento Bee on Sunday said De’Vazia Turner, 29, was another person killed.
Many details surrounding the shooting remain unknown, including whether the shooters fired indiscriminately or were targeting certain people or groups; exactly how many shooters opened fire; and what types of firearms may have been used. No suspect descriptions have been released.
Relatives of Harris and Turner said the men had been at a nightclub called London, which is located at the coroner of 10th and J streets.
London in a statement posted to social media said it “enforces strict security protocols and begins closing procedures at 1:30 a.m.” and said it continues to cooperate with the police investigation.
Police Department spokesman Sgt. Zach Eaton said police believe there were “at least two shooters” involved, but did not know if any shots were fired inside any bars or nightclubs in the area.
Two of four shooting victims who were hospitalized at UC Davis Medical Center have been released.
A spokeswoman for the health system said Monday that two of the victims were discharged and two patients remain, but their conditions were not disclosed.
Several patients were transported to area hospitals, including UC Davis and Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento, while some patients self-transported to Sutter Medical Center and others.
Lester said a city surveillance camera captured a portion of the incident. That footage has not been made publicly available as of Monday morning.
Bystander cellphone video also surfaced online, some of which has been forwarded to authorities.
One of those videos, which the Police Department acknowledged it had received, showed a fight taking place outside a bar at 10th and K streets shortly before a stream of gunfire could be heard. The people fighting in the video began to scatter and run away as shots continued, including a trill of what sounded like an automatic weapon.
After Mayor Darrell Steinberg spoke out against assault weapons and homemade “ghost guns,” and called for increasing outreach and support for city youth, Lester clarified that police have not confirmed whether the incident involved ghost guns, nor whether it involved any juvenile suspects.
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(The Bee’s Jason Anderson, Benjy Egel, Ryan Lillis, Dale Kasler and Sam Stanton contributed to this story.)
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