Raging Violence

Gang Crackdown: Bobby Zuniga (left), a Salinas gang intelligence officer, questions a man under arrest for allegedly violating a stay-away order from Acosta Plaza, which has had two double-victim shootings recently. Nic Coury

Another deadly week in Salinas.

By Zachary Stahl

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Gang violence continued to besiege Salinas this past week with two teens and one man shot and killed, bringing the city’s death toll to nine this year.

During the evening of Feb. 26, Carlos Mejia, 17, and Francisco Alfaro Jr., 16, both Everett Alvarez High School students, were shot multiple times on the 900 block of Acosta Plaza. About 17 hours after the double homicide, 24-year-old Noe Alvarez Amezcua was shot on the 900 block of Del Monte Avenue.

With help from California Highway Patrol and the county’s Gang Task Force, police swarmed the section of east Salinas where the three slayings occurred, rounding up seven gang members including one parolee with an assault rifle. Despite the beefed-up patrol, however, two more teens were gunned down Sunday, March 1.

At about 12:30pm, the two victims were doing yard work on the 1200 block of Caoba Way when a male suspect got out of a burgundy van and opened fire, hitting the 16-year-old in the stomach and the 19-year-old in the arm, police said. Both survived.

A family member tried to capture the shooter by placing him in a bear hug, but the suspect was able to escape after striking the man in the face with his gun. A neighbor followed the suspect’s vehicle but lost sight of the car at North Sanborn Road before he was able to get the license plate number.

Mayor Dennis Donohue said the city is pursuing additional federal and state manpower to boost policing in the short term while continuing to call for a larger police force in the long term. “Obviously I have concern for the victims,” he says. “I continue to view these assaults as nothing less than an assault on our city.”