Weekend shootings lead to city’s first two homicides of the year
SAN JOSl » Separate shootings in a seven-hour span across the city overnight resulted in San Jose’s first two homicides of the year, according to police, bringing the possibility that a rate of killings that bucked pandemic-fueled downward trends by rising to above-average levels in 2020 may continue.
The first reported shooting of the overnight stretch occurred about 7:30 p.m. Saturday near Woz Way and Auzerais Avenue, on the edge of downtown near the Children’s Discovery Museum. Police said that officers were called to the area and found a man suffering from gunshot injuries.
Then about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, officers responded to a shooting on Mammoth Drive off Jackson Avenue, less than a block from Regional Medical Center.
Both shooting victims were described as suffering life-threatening injuries. On Sunday morning, police confirmed that both victims had died from their injuries. Their names were not immediately released publicly pending their formal identification and notification of their next of kin by the Santa Clara County Medical ExaminerCoroner’s Office.
Police said on Sunday morning that the motives and circumstances behind the deadly shootings, and the location of any suspects, were under investigation. Additional details were not available.
The killings follow a year in which reported crimes were trending down mostly across the board in San Jose, no doubt heavily influenced by the shelter-in-place and other related restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Santa Clara County was a national leader in instituting lockdown policies.
But notable exceptions were also at play: The homicide total rose from 34 in 2019 to 44 in 2020, capped by a fatal shooting on the last day of the year. And inside a projected 5% to 6% drop in property crimes is an increase in commercial burglaries, which police say was intuitive because the focus for thieves shifted from homes, where people were forced to stay, to businesses, many of which were left shuttered or vacant by the lockdowns.
So while violent crime was projecting a 4% decrease in San Jose, the city was experiencing a 22% increase in homicides. But it should be noted that the city’s yearly homicide totals are much lower than what is typical for similarly-sized cities, and the 44 killings in 2020 are not significantly above the median total for the past decade.
The weekend homicides also continue a long-standing trend where shootings account for a majority of killings in San Jose: According to data compiled by this organization, last year 26 homicides, or 59%, were gun crimes. Police have said that they are routinely seizing illegal guns and “ghost guns” — assembled from prefabricated materials that can make them impossible to trace — during enforcement stops with a frequency that was unheard of 20 years ago.
Anyone with information about the weekend shootings can contact the SJPD homicide unit at 408277-5283 or leave a tip with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at svcrimestoppers.org.