By: Sonora Slater for The Dirt
A shooting in Davis during Picnic Day festivities Saturday, April 12 left several injured and exposed children and their families to gun violence. No arrests have been made. As Davis gears up for another month of community events and festivals, safety preparations are top of mind across the City.
Picnic Day, an annual UC Davis Open House, brings tens of thousands of visitors to campus each year — but off-campus, it draws a different crowd as the unofficial biggest partying day in Davis. One of these parties, hosted in Community Park by UC Davis fraternity Phi Beta Sigma, was the site of the shooting. The fraternity has held similar events on Picnic Day for several years, but a widely-advertised performance by Stockton rapper Haiti Babii at this year’s gathering significantly increased attendance, with hundreds of people coming from all over the region to see the musical artist — who has more than 730K monthly listeners — for free.
The party turned violent near 3 p.m., when multiple shots were fired into the crowd. Three people were struck, including a 24-year-old and two teenagers: one from Sacramento, and one who attends Davis Joint Unified School District. Others were injured during the rush to exit the park, tripping while running to safety. All victims are expected to make a full physical recovery.
It took more than an hour and a half, and a helicopter with a public address system to clear the park, according to Davis Police. In total, more than 50 officers responded to the shooting. Davis Senior High School, where a jazz choir gala was ongoing, was temporarily placed on lockdown. Livestream footage of a Little League baseball game across the street shows the moment gunshots were fired — children running to safety or laying on the ground while parents and coaches lay on top of them to shield them.
One father of a child in the game, told The Dirt his son was pulled from the field by other parents while he pulled his daughter and one of her classmates under the bleachers as fleeing partygoers ran through the area. Later, he and his wife, a registered ICU nurse, were able to help triage the wounds for two of the victims who had been shot in the feet/ankle area. The father, who wished to remain anonymous, said his older kids understood what had happened, but the younger ones assumed the sound had come from fireworks.
As people scrambled to leave the party, the overwhelm of traffic merged with already existent Picnic Day traffic, resulting in a localized gridlock. Carol Parker told The Dirt it took her nearly an hour to get from the intersection of West Covell and Anderson to 2nd and F St. — normally an 8 minute trip.
Five days after the shooting, the Davis Police Department took to Instagram and Facebook to announce they believed there had been multiple shooters, and described one as a black male adult, between 20-25 years old, under 6 feet tall with an average build.
If you have information about this crime or the subjects involved, or videos or photos of the incident, email tipline@davispd.org.
Safety plans for the future
Though the on-campus portion of Picnic Day is typically known to be safe and family-friendly, the day does have a long history of increased crime rates off campus. In 2017, a man was arrested after allegedly brandishing a gun in downtown Davis. And in 2010, numerous fights, robberies and reports of gunshots from a passing car resulted in major policing policy changes, including increased staffing that drew on support from neighboring agencies and a zero-tolerance policy for infractions.
Shortly after the shooting, Davis city council members unanimously passed a resolution forming a subcommittee to address Picnic Day safety concerns. Specifically, they discussed looking into how to refine the permit process for public events. The fraternity did obtain a noise permit for a small gathering, but according to an article in the Sacramento Bee, Davis police say that they would not have allowed the event had they known how big the gathering would end up being, or that the group was inviting such a high-profile guest. Public commenters at the city council meeting pointed out that although the artist performing was not listed on the permit, he was advertised as performing at the party across social media as early as February.
“This is not something small that happened in our community,” Council member Josh Chapman said at the meeting. “This could’ve gone in an extremely different direction.”
The police department said they are reevaluating their safety plan as we approach a month of large city-wide events that often draw in visitors, including Whole Earth Festival, Celebrate Davis, and the Davis Pride Festival, all happening in May.
“We are actively re-evaluating our process for providing security to events in the City,” DPD Lieutenant Dan Beckwith told The Dirt. “It is always our goal to review events and identify areas where we can improve security moving forward.”
For years, organizers at Davis Pride have worked to keep their event welcoming and safe for everyone by hiring a private security firm to monitor the event and asking volunteers to observe and report anything they think could be of concern.
“The safety, security and overall enjoyment at any of our events is the Davis Phoenix Coalition’s number one priority,” Sandré Nelson, the director of Davis Pride, told The Dirt. “Both our volunteers and security firm have ensured that we have had limited incidents at Davis Pride and we will continue to do so using the “See Something, Say Something” model.”
The Little League father who was present during the shooting said he and his family still feel safe attending public events, and believe that this was a tragic anomaly.
“We’re totally fine with upcoming big events,” he said. “I think it helps to frame up the events this way: A frat threw a party with a big headliner and [they] advertised far better than expected this year. Maybe they, or the city, could’ve anticipated crowd sizes better. But you can have these types of events and parties safely.”
Instead of their usual Tuesday practice after the Picnic Day shooting, Little Leaguers were invited to a UC Davis Aggies Baseball game. Young players were welcomed onto the field with the college team, to help anxious players readjust to being on the field. “I think this did wonders to just normalize things for the kids and parents,” the father said.
For many, the effect will be long lasting. Exposure to gun violence, according to the American Psychiatric Association, even without injury, can result in significant psychological trauma, including PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
Anais Foley-Kennedy, another Davis parent present at the game, reflected on the event on Facebook.
“One of our sweet four-year-olds in the car was asking, ‘Why were we running?’ as she continued to enjoy her ranch Doritos,” Foley-Kennedy wrote. “It sank in […] this was something that these innocent children would carry with them for the rest of their lives.”
