Four Shot in Sacramento After College Football Game as California's Labor Day Weekend Turns Violent

Four people were shot in Sacramento early Sunday morning, hours after a college football game let out near California State University, Sacramento, according to the Sacramento Police Department.

Officers found three women with gunshot wounds near Cucamonga Avenue and Ramona Avenue in the Granite Regional Park area around 12:30 a.m., the department said. Two were taken to a hospital with injuries described as not life-threatening. A third was treated at the scene for minor injuries.

A short time later, officers responding to a crash on Folsom Boulevard and State University Drive found a man who had also been shot. He was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. No arrests have been announced, and Sacramento police have not released a motive or said whether the shootings are connected to each other.

A Rough Stretch for California Gatherings

The Sacramento shooting caps a violent run tied to public events across the state this Labor Day weekend and in the weeks leading up to it.

Early Saturday morning, the Los Angeles Police Department and multiple partner agencies broke up an illegal street takeover in the Harbor Gateway neighborhood near Gardena, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police towed roughly 160 vehicles, made dozens of arrests, and recovered six guns.

Councilmember Tim McOsker, whose district includes Harbor Gateway, told OnScene.TV that officers impounded cars and booked drivers while other attendees were cited, and that children present were taken to a nearby station so parents could pick them up. Around 3 a.m., police surrounded the intersection to prevent people from fleeing.

"This is an area where on many weekends, especially throughout the summer, there were street takeovers, and this being the first night of Labor Day weekend, LAPD was ready," McOsker said.

Footage from OnScene.TV showed agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at the scene. Asked what role the agency played, McOsker said he didn't know whether HSI was even there and called it "a local police operation to stop street takeovers." In Los Angeles, where federal immigration enforcement has become politically charged, residents might reasonably wonder about the agency's presence. Nothing in the reporting shows HSI took any enforcement action beyond being present, and no source has established what, if anything, the agency did.

The Bakersfield Shooting That Preceded It

The weekend's violence follows a shooting just over two weeks earlier that turned deadly. On Aug. 21, a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed inside the stadium fence at Independence High School in Bakersfield during the football team's season opener against Centennial High School, according to the Bakersfield Police Department. Officers found him with gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead at Kern Medical.

Police arrested a 15-year-old the next day, Aug. 22, on suspicion of murder, firearm-related offenses, and participating in a criminal street gang, Fox News reported, citing the Bakersfield Police Department. Investigators told Fox News the suspect and victim knew each other and that the shooting "was not a random act of violence."

Fox News framed the shooting as gang-related, based on the specific charge police announced. USA Today's account, citing Bakersfield police Sgt. Eric Celedon, described the shooting as stemming from "an altercation involving a group of people" without characterizing it as gang violence. Both descriptions came from police, but they emphasize different things. Neither the suspect nor the victim attended Independence High School, according to both outlets. The gun used has not been recovered, and police say there are no additional suspects at large.

That same Friday night, roughly 100 miles away, a report of gunfire halted a game between King/Drew Magnet High School and San Pedro High School at Los Angeles Southwest College, sending spectators fleeing. Sports Illustrated's initial coverage, drawing on a KTLA broadcast, treated the incident under a gunfire framing without noting it was later determined unfounded. Patch and USA Today both reported the follow-up: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Gabriela Robles said no evidence of an actual shooting was found, though one person suffered a minor injury while the crowd was dispersing. San Pedro was leading 21-6 in the third quarter when the game was stopped; San Pedro's athletic director, Anthony Rogosic, said the result would stand as a San Pedro win. Authorities in both Kern County and Los Angeles County stressed that the two Aug. 21 incidents were unrelated to each other.

What's Unresolved

Sacramento police have not said whether the Sunday shooting is connected to the earlier football game itself or to some other dispute among attendees, and no suspect description has been released. Until an arrest is made, the department's account remains the only official record of what happened near Granite Regional Park early Sunday morning.