Resident questions police over uptick in shootings

In February, Heritage District resident Michelle Hartman told the Lodi City Council that she and her residents were living in fear after six shootings occurred over the course of eight days that month.

Lodi Police Department officials told her that patrols had been increased in the district, and that it was working with Stockton Police Department to identify gangs and members that operate in both cities.

On Wednesday night, Hartman returned to council chambers to again ask what the city is being done to address the increased gun violence in the Heritage District.

“I want to know what’s more important, tourist money or the safety of our community,” she said during public comment. “Because as a voter, what I see is tourist money.”

Hartman provided a list of nine dates over the last three months in which multiple shootings occurred in her neighborhood.

On April 1, there were multiple reports of gunshots heard on both Central Avenue and Elm Streets at separate times during the night, and there were reports of incidents on Flora Street on April 16.

There were also reports of gun violence in the area of Stockton and Pine streets on April 24, she said.

Hartman said that on May 4, officers heard gunshots near Hale Park, another shooting occurred in the area of Stockton Street and Central Avenue on May 10, and multiple residents reported shots heard in the area of Pine Street and Central Avenue on My 30. The latter, Hartman said, happened at 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon.

She also noted recent shootings on June 8 and 12, where several shots were heard on Eat Oak Street at 4:16 p.m. in the former incident, and multiple gunshots were heard at 4:20 p.m. in the area of Pine Street and Central Avenue.

Hartman referred to the June 13 shooting in which two people opened fire on a man on the 200 block of East Pine Street at 9:30 p.m.

The 22-year-old victim was shot in the foot and backpack after words were exchanged. The contents of the backpack protected the victim from being struck in his back, police said.

She said the shooter were teenagers and that the victim was carrying a gun in the backpack, but on Tuesday, the police did not disclose what possession he had inside the sack.

“You guys want to push it under the rug,” Hartman said. “(Lodi is) a nice, sweet little town. Come spend you r money, be here and drink our wine. Teenagers are running through our streets with guns. This is a gang problem, and it’s an entire city problem.”

Hartman asked why the department chose to issue a media release about two shootings on the city’s west side, but not one about Monday’s incident.

The two shootings on the west side of Lodi occurred at 3:46 a.m. and 4:06 a.m. last Friday.

Someone fired multiple times at unoccupied parked vehicles on the 100 block of West Tokay Street in the earlier incident, and an unoccupied residence on the 1100 block of Dartmoor Circle was struck in the second.

Police said it was unknown who the intended victims were in both shootings.

“June has had more daytime shootings, and that’s concerning,” Hartman said. “What is more concerning is we need more transparency. I need to know what the city plans on doing to help each other. This is a problem for everyone that has children in the community.”

Police Chief Sierra Brucia said there has been an uptick in gang-related incidents throughout the city over the last three months, and that the department has increased its special enforcement teams to combat the issue.

He added that patrol units have been directed to areas where gang activities and shootings have increased as well.

“Since January, we’ve recovered almost 50 guns off he street through proactive enforcement to try and remove those weapons form the streets that have been used in the shootings,” he said. “We’ve reassigned all our detectives from dayshift to nightshift when the significant portions of our shootings are occurring. We’ve increased the (overtime) we’re using, and working with the city’s human resources department) to create a gang intervention specialist, a position that was vacated during COVID. So there a lot of steps that were taking.”

Councilman Shak Khan said he and staff from the city manager and Public Works offices will be touring the Heritage District in the coming weeks to look at ways to remove blight and improve safety so that crime is reduced in the area.

A discussion of the findings would be placed on a future meeting agenda, he said, adding the department is doing what it can to protect the community from the uptick in violence.

“The gang-related problems... we were going through a lot of drug issues in the past,” he said. “Before that it was gangs, and the gang activity went down, then the drugs, now the gangs. So the (police department) is working really hard to control that. I want to thank them for that.”