Following a deadly weekend in the city in which a 9-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy were shot and killed in separate incidents, Sacramento leaders called Monday for an end to youth violence while promising to find more money for youth programs and violence prevention.
“An eye for an eye only leads to everybody becoming blind,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg said Monday during a press conference outside City Hall.
Since Saturday afternoon, there have been at least five shootings in the city and county. Four of those have been deadly, including the fatal shooting of a 9-year-old girl Saturday in Mama Marks Park in Del Paso Heights. Also on Saturday, 17-year-old Jaylen Betschart, a senior at Sacramento High School, was found shot to death in his vehicle after it crashed near Granite Regional Park.
No arrests had been announced in the cases as of Monday night.
