21-year-old arrested over three stabbings in California college town

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA – A 21-year-old man, who was a University of California, Davis, student until last week, has been arrested in connection with three stabbings in the college town, police announced on Thursday.

The man, Carlos Dominguez, was detained and booked on suspicion of murder after residents called the police with more than a dozen reports that they had seen a man who fit witnesses’ description of the suspect, wandering near the park where one of the attacks happened, the police said.

Dominguez was carrying a large fixed-blade knife when he was apprehended, the police said, and was booked into the Yolo County Jail early on Thursday on suspicion of a weapons violation. He was arrested about 12 hours later on two counts of murder and a third count of attempted murder.

The announcement, which occurred just hours after a memorial service for one of the stabbing victims, was met with relief in the city of about 70,000 people west of Sacramento, California. The three stabbings over five days had shocked the residents of Davis, where the last reported homicide occurred in 2019.

“A murderer is off the streets and our families will sleep easier tonight,” Davis Mayor Will Arnold said. “Now the work begins, in earnest, to heal as a community, to take back our shared spaces and to move forward as one.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Carter Carlson, 23, an employee at the elementary school abutting the park where one of the victims died, said he was placing flowers on a makeshift memorial along the bike path when he noticed a lone figure on the nearby play area behaving strangely. He called the police.

When another man entered the park, talking on his cellphone, the young man noticed and began to meander away, walking toward a local strip mall. Mr Carlson hopped into his car, he said, and followed him.

Shortly after, he said, he saw several police cars and, eventually, police officers leading the man away. NYTIMES