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SAPD reports 11 homicides in 17 days
A spate of killings has left 11 people dead in 17 days, authorities said, the city's most violent streak in more than a year.
Since Sept. 15, the slayings have occurred with alarming precision, many of them just hours apart. Men and women, including several older than 50, have been found shot, stabbed and strangled. Most recently, Maria Elizabeth Campos, 42, was discovered early Tuesday inside her burning apartment, her throat slit.
The recent rash of slayings brought this year's homicide count to 102, just 17 fewer than the number recorded in 2006, putting the city on pace to surpass last year's total, the highest number in more than a decade.
San Antonio police said there doesn't appear to be a trend or connection to the wave of killings.
"We're dealing with a e ... in violent crime culminating in murder," San Antonio police spokesman Sgt. Gabe Trevino said. "A lot of cases are random acts of violence that are very difficult to prevent."
Of the 102 slayings this year, a figure that includes the fatal shooting of Detective Mario Moreno, nearly half have been cleared, said San Antonio police Lt. Joseph MacKay.
The most homicides in one year — 229 — were recorded in the Alamo City in 1993.
In the last decade, San Antonio has tallied only two years with more than 100 reported homicides: 2006 and 2007, according to the city's Web site.
The recent rash of homicides is similar to a spree last June in which 12 people were killed in a 16-day span.
This year's spate began Sept. 15 when Ismael Garcia, 36 was shot on the city's West Side after he left a car as an argument broke out between two women. The next day, Antonio Alonzo Hernandez, 38, was stabbed in the neck, face and body in the restroom of a Las Palapas restaurant in the 2900 block of Blanco Road; he died nine days later at University Hospital.
The homicide streak also included the Sept. 21 slaying of Moreno, who was shot in the head during a sting at a Northwest Side apartment complex. He was the first on-duty San Antonio police officer killed by gunfire since March 2001.
Nationwide, 59 officers have been fatally shot this year, 21 in Texas. Last year, of the 39 officer slayings, nine were in the state.
In San Antonio, the slaying of Campos early Tuesday was especially tragic and disheartening for family and friends who recently saw Campos turn her life around. Campos, a mother of four, lived on the streets for many years and endured a triple bypass surgery last year. Since then she found God, said Pastor Alfonso Gonzales, adding that she had recently joined the Soldiers of Christ Church band.
"She was very depressed and had a hard life, but she changed a lot," said Gonzales, whose church Campos attended for three years. "She was a survivor."
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