Salinas police are battling a recent spate of violence that's killed at least five people in separate incidents over three days. Investigators suspect all of the shootings are gang-related. Sgt. Chris Lane says each victim was either connected to the Nortenos gang or its rival, the Surenos. Among those killed are two Alisal High School students, including a 15-year-old boy who was fatally shot behind the school Monday. No arrests have been made in the five slayings. Police say gang violence is an ongoing problem in the city. Gangs were blamed for 23 of the 25 homicides in Salinas last year, which broke the previous record high of 24 killings in 1994. In October, authorities launched an anti-gang effort called Operation Impact that involves the Monterey County Sheriff's Office and California Highway Patrol.
''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an...
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