Stockton Homicide Drop Allows Officers To Investigate Last Year's Unsolved Cases
STOCKTON (CBS13) — The city of Stockton is searching for answers to curb violence after a shooting killed a man and wounded four others.
Candles and trinkets mark where the people were shot Tuesday night outside a corner market. The city's 20th murder this year remains unsolved.
A police community response team hit the streets on Wednesday in a show of force, and a move to look for more clues.
"[We're] trying to look for additional witnesses and people who may have been involved in the homicide," said Stockton Police Officer Joe Silva.
While they were at the scene of the murder, officers from the street team and the gang task force spotted a suspicious group.
"They made contact with a couple of them and realized two of them had firearms," said Silva.
Those two—Lavonne Mixon, 24, and a 15-year-old—were arrested on gun charges unrelated to Tuesday night's shooting.
Stockton's lower homicide is down 60 percent from this time last year, making this type of reactive police work more possible. Officers are freed up to make themselves more visible in areas after a major crime happens, as well as follow up on last year's unsolved cases.
"Even though we are at 20 homicides we still have a long ways to go, because that's too many," Silva said.
