SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As Sacramento police continue searching for answers in Sunday's mass shooting, Police Chief Kathy Lester sat down with ABC10 to share details they collected and have confirmed so far.
Lester said at least three buildings and three cars were hit by gunfire, and police recovered more than 100 bullet casings from at least two different caliber weapons.
In addition to describing the scene of the crime in downtown, Lester talks about what police are currently doing to identify the shooters and bring justice to victims' families.
The following interview was edited for brevity.
Have you recovered any ghost guns (privately made gun) in connection to this case?
I can tell you the stolen gun we recovered at the scene ― that is not a ghost gun.
Do you have any stats on some of the guns, ghost guns? And what is your plan to tackle this gun violence?
So in 2019 we had about 73 (ghost guns) that we seized, in 2020 we have 196 and last year we had over 400. Those are all firearms that are out in our community, and there's no record of them ever being made.
It's really concerning because it's literally flooding areas with firearms that are being used to commit violence in our community. That's one aspect of what we're looking at tackling as a department.
I want the public to know, our community to know, that this is not a problem unique to Sacramento, this level of violence and increasing violence in particular to gun violence is being seen across the United States.
We're looking at partnerships with our regional and our federal partners. We've already committed several officers to our (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) Task Force.
What would you say to those families (of lost loved ones)? I know you wanted an opportunity to speak directly to them.
It is really hard to say the right thing, because what can you say? This is unexpected.
This is traumatic. I think as a community we need to be here to support our families. I think as a police department we need to do everything we can to bring the suspects that are involved in this type of crime to justice for those families.
