As Salinas grapples with 'murder capital' legacy, homicides drop 89% in a year (2024)

Angie Ortega spent the day before Independence Day at her daughter's grave,commemorating what would have been Lorraine Ortega's 50th birthday.

She played Garth Brooks' "The Dance," prayedand readMatthew 26: 36-46 — Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion.

"That should have been a beautiful anniversary with family. But I had to go to this grave," said Ortega, whose daughter was brutally killed in February 1993 at the age of 23. "I had to sit at her grave today... look at her gravestone and say, 'My daughter is in heaven and safe.'"

In the years after her daughter's death, Ortega stepped into a new role aspresident of the Monterey County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children.

Ortega isalso a member of a neighborhood block party committee, which is how she noticed something unusual on Oct. 6 in Soberanes Park in East Salinas.

Ortega saw a difference in how people were interacting with Salinas police there,such as children running up to look at police vehicles rather than hiding behind their parents.

"I was seeing small changes here and there. (But on Oct. 6) I left my table, my booth, and was walking around in a little bit of awe, thinking, 'I haven't seen this before,'" Ortega said. "I wish I could've had a painting of this, it's so beautiful."

Ortega said July 3 she also has noticed crime dropping in Salinas.

This week, a 37-year-old man was fatally shotlate Thursday in Chinatown.Police have released few details on the homicide and are still investigating.

But even as Salinas police investigate his death, Salinas is experiencing a very different trend in murders than in the first half of the decade, when murders climbed every year to a record high of40 in 2015.

In the first half of 2019, however, Salinas reached a 10-year low of just one murder.

In other words, even as Salinas still grapples with violence, that violence is falling, the data show.

89% drop in murders in the first half of the year from 2018 to 2019

The July 11 Chinatown shooting was the second homicideof 2019 in Salinas.

Before then, Salinas had one murder, an 89% drop from2018's nine homicides through June, said Adele Fresé, chief of the Salinas Police Department, on July 2.

Armed robberies, rapes, andassaults reported in the first five months of the year also fell compared withthe same period last year, she said.

Shootings are down 47%— falling from 43 to 23— in that time span,Fresé said.

"I think the city is just done with being classified as a violent city, or murder capital, or leading California (in) youth violence," Fresé said.

In addition, the only murder in the first six months of 2019 wasn't gang-related, police have said.

As of Friday morning, officers have not said whether Chinatown's shooting was gang-motivated.The previous gang-motivated murder occurred Nov. 3.Felix Alonso Francisco, a farm worker who wasn't a gang member, was shot to death.

Anthony Valdez, 21, and Kristopher Purcell, 20, areNorteño gang members who organized a "murder squad" that killed Francisco and others, authorities have said.

Additional members have been arrested. The case is awaiting trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Growing up 'in the shadow of murder': Homicideaffectsgenerations

Angie Ortega has suffered heart problems since her daughter was brutally murdered— the cause of death may have been stabbing, strangulation or two other violent acts, she said.

Part of her pain has been questioning whether her daughter's murder overshadowed not only her life but her relationships with her family, she said.

"I heard something at a parole hearing (for the killer) from one of my granddaughters: 'I grew up in the shadow of murder. Every holiday, every birthday was overshadowed by first going to the cemetery. It was like a kickoff event,'" Ortega said. "I sat there thinking, 'What did I do to these children?'... It affects our families— over generations."

For a victim's loved ones, the holidays "are landmines," she said.

But when The Californian informed Ortega of the drop in murders and shootings in 2019, "It's amazing," she responded.

Salinas police made changes to address the murder rate

Fresé said those decreases came about because of a variety of reasons.

The police department filling 40 vacanciesusing voter-approved sales tax dollarswas one the main origins of the change, she said.

More officers meant reduced burnoutand more resources, such as theViolence Suppression Unit, later renamed the Violence Suppression Task Force (VSTF) with the addition of federal, state and other local law enforcement.

"We saw some immediate positive results, so we decided to branch out and create a change," she said.

But the department also attacked crime from a different angle: Community-oriented policing, including increasing neighborhood watch groups, more openness and interactions with the public, she said.

Fresé said when she arrived, police depended on the gunshot location system Shot Spotter to alert them to shootings— now officers receive multiple calls in addition to the automatic alerts.

Ortega has noticed— referring to that Oct. 6 block party. In addition, she says the additional arrests of people violating parole and seizures of illegally possessed guns have reduced crime.

She also points to community programs, especially for youth, as contributing to the drop in violent crime across the board, as did city council members.

"We are near 90% fewer murders than we experienced a year ago," Councilman Steve McShane, who represents the south side, said July 5. "That doesn't happen by chance."

The police department, including additional staffing and the VSTF, is behind much of the decline in violence, said Jose Arreola, director of the Community Alliance for Safety and Peace (CASP), last week.

"I think we're starting to see the fruits of their labor," he said.

CASP works to foster communication and coordination among the many Salinas and Monterey County community organizations targeting crime— especially among youth.

Youth violence has already plummeted more than 60%, according to a September 2018Californian article.

But while the drop in murders was "pretty remarkable" and "a huge plummet and a huge turnaround," the 47% drop in shootings between January and May reinforced the good news, Arreola said.

"That's really low," he said. "... That's a remarkable downtrend. That's huge. The police have got to be super proud of that number."

CASP, schools and watch groups also help anti-violence efforts

CASP, schools and watch groups also help anti-violence efforts

But the anti-violence approach goes beyond police— it includes CASP's efforts to bring everyone to the table, he said.

Schools and education officials' important help also has reduced violence, he said.

City council members, reached by phone and text July 5, also noted the importance of schools as well as communityand youth organizations in driving that downtrend.

Councilman John "Tony" Villegas pointed tothe police department's school resource officers in the Santa Rita School District.

North Salinas Councilwoman Christie Cromeenes attributed the drop to Salinas' "evolving care for our citizens, and of course more involved parenting"in addition to Salinas police and thecommunity-policing outreach.

East Salinas councilmen Scott Davis and Tony Barrera both credited the Salinas police and community organizations, including schools, with the decline in violence.

Councilwoman Gloria De La Rosa, who represents parts of East and South Salinas as well as Chinatown, said she's noticed more involvementin neighborhood watches and social media.

Local crime and neighborhood watch groups have sprung up on social mediaand share information on suspicious circ*mstances.

'My baby'

On a cool Friday night in February, Abdelwahed Rahali, 37, was shot to death — Salinas' only murder victim in the first half of 2019.

At about 7:55 p.m. Feb. 22, Salinas police responded to a home in the 1200 block of Granada Avenue.

There, they found Rahali.He died at the scene.

One woman, who hasn't been identified, was escorted out of the crime scene, where she collapsed on the sidewalk and began calling out "my baby."

At least 11 shots had been fired.

A 17-year-old was arrested on suspicion of killingRahaliafter a police community service officer noticed a person acting suspiciously.

A motive has not been released, but police said it didn't appear gang-motivated. Cases involving juvenile suspects are generally sealed, and little information is made public.

Mending the gap between community and cops

Many of the successes in reducing violence come from prevention efforts and inspiring the people most impacted to activism, said Andrea Manzo, regional equity director for Building Healthy Communities (BHC) East Salinas, July 5.

Too often, the public loses hope for reform— her organization works with other groups to cultivate grassroots change, especially by training people on leadership.

"This is your power," she said. "... It createsdifferent sorts of communities, different sorts of hope.

"(They can) dissolve or undo this idea that 'they're never going to change things,' this attitude that nothing's going to change," she said.

Salinas police have also worked on "ensuring the force actually looks more like the people in the community" by adding more Latinos, Spanish-speakers and women, Manzo said.

But there remains a long history of mistrust between East Salinas and police, including a sense of "over-policing," she said.

"(There's a sense that) 'Oh, I've seen three cops already. We must be on the East Side,'" she said.

Both police and community members seem to want to mend that gap — the Alisal Vibrancy Plan, and the back-and-forth at public meetings on it, show that desire, Manzo said.

But the fatal Salinas officer-involved shooting of Brenda Rodriguez Mendoza during a March 1 standoff reminded many of 2014, when four people died in officer-involved shootings, Manzo said.

Chief Fresé said she could not comment on details of the fatal officer-involved shooting of Mendoza because of the ongoing investigation by the Monterey County District Attorney's Office. The DA,Jeannine Pacioni, hasnot determinedwhether the shooting was justified.

A senior prosecutor referred questions Tuesday on the investigation to Pacioni, who did not return a call and an email last weekregarding the investigation.

But at a press conference in April, Pacioni reported that Salinas police opened fire on Mendoza, killing her, after an hours-long standoff that included monitoring and advice from Monterey County Behavioral Health.

Mendoza, who had been prescribed antidepressantsand was living out of her broken-down SUV, pointed at officers a pellet gun that closely resembled a real pistol, Pacioni previously said.

Police had been called out to the E. Laurel Drive neighborhood after Mendoza allegedly threatened a woman at the property, Pacioni has said.

A month before Mendoza's death, Salinas police also shot a man brandishing a similar replica gun. He survived and pleaded out to charges of brandishing a weapon and theft.

Mendoza's death spurred a protest at city hallover allegations of police brutality.

"Obviously, it brought back a lot of trauma, and itactually, given the officer-involved shootings that happened in 2014, (resurfaced) a lotof hurt," Manzo said.

Fresé welcomes questioning of the police department, as long as those questions are asked in good faith, she said.

In the unrest over Mendoza's shooting, she said misinformation circulated while police were still gathering and vetting information.

"It's important community members understand they need to look at the facts first, not what a community member throws up in the air," she said.

Can the former 'murder capital' keep the homicide rate down?

Salinas has been called the youthhomicide capitalof California in both local and national media.

The nickname arose after the Violence Policy Center' annual 'Lost Youth' reports repeatedly foundMonterey County led the state in youth homicides, which overwhelmingly involved Hispanic victims and were gang-related.

The center's last report anchoreda 2016VICE News story on the "youth murder capital of California."

The Lost Youth report has since been discontinued because the grant funding ran out, according to the Violence Policy Center.

But since the 40 murders in 2015, homicides have fallen at about 20-30% each year.

The one murder in the first half of 2019, however, is thelowest it has been since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began reporting mid-year figures with 2010's crime statistics.

But Fresé worries that the trend may not hold— staffing was key to the reduction in violence and the city has already frozen 12 open sworn-officer positions at the police department.

To deal with previous staffing shortages, Fresé sought out partnerships withlocal, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Earlier this year, police held a press conference celebrating a reduction in shootings and violence related toOperation Triple Beam, a four-month longcampaign by Salinas police, local agencies and state and federal law-enforcement that focused on guns and gangs.

More: Shootings, homicides drop as Salinas police target gangs, guns in special operation

That partnership has continued andallows Salinas to leverage state and federalresources and connections, Fresé said.She also hopes a modern records system will allow police to respond to crime trends in real-time.

Nonetheless, partnerships and trust-building with the community, such as CASP, and especially Salinas residents remain key, she said.

"We could carry on this trend forever if we work together," Fresé said.

As for Ortega, who celebrated her daughter's birthday while commemorating her murder, she honored Lorraine with Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gesthemane in the book of Matthew.

"I called this 'Keeping watch over us,'" she said of Matthew 26:36-46. "... I firmly believe that as survivors we 'keep watch over our loved ones' and others that are in this same journey."

Joe Szydlowski is a multimedia journalist for the Salinas Californian who covers local government, crime and cannabis. Follow him on Twitter attwitter.com/JoeSzyd_Salinas. He can be reached at 235-2360. Help support The Californian's work:https://bit.ly/2Qo298J