Only one day earlier, 24-year-old Erick DeAnda’s siblings called Salinas police, saying their brother had admitted to killing their mother the day before. The woman’s aunt and uncle died at the scene, and she and a cousin were hospitalized. Police said the woman and three relatives were cornered and shot by Ejaz in the parking lot. In another of the year’s most reported domestic crimes, Sammuel Ejaz, 50, of Garden Grove allegedly followed his estranged wife from Southern California to a Salinas Social Security office early on Aug. Charges of murder, torture, child abuse and conspiracy have been filed against the children’s caretakers, Tami Joy Huntsman, 39, and Gonzalo Curiel, 17, by Monterey County prosecutors. What many consider the most heinous of the year’s murders are those of two children, Shaun Tara, 6, and his sister Delylah, 3, believed to have been abused and starved in Salinas before their bodies were found in a Redding storage locker. With a drastically understaffed police force, he says, small-time narcotics users just can’t be a priority.Īnd then there is the rise in fatal domestic violence. The propensity in that situation for conflict is really high.” “They’re dealing with people who are mentally ill, drug-addicted or both in an attempt to control a drug scene. Officers are often reluctant to venture into known drug sales areas such as Chinatown just to “go write tickets for meth,” he says. “Possession of heroin and meth is now a ticket,” McMillin says. Police are dealing with a new reality after voters passed Proposition 47, which turned a number of drug felonies into misdemeanors. McMillin says the drug scene in Salinas is changing rapidly, which could affect the level of violence, though it’s not yet clear why. But this year “we’ve heard of drug deals that went bad, people trying to rip people off,” Contreras says. The city has never been classified as an “open-air drug market,” a designation given to urban areas where dealers sell on street corners. “We’ve never seen this many drug-related shootings or homicides,” says Brian Contreras, director of 2nd Chance Family and Youth Services. Though gangs do control much of the local drug trade, this year a number of shootings appear to be disputes over drug sales - without gang involvement. “There’s a broad spectrum of violence going on right now,” says Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin.
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