Vallejo police are investigating a double homicide that occurred at the 100 block of Yorkshire Court on Nov. 17.
A woman called police around 8:55 p.m. the night of the incident, reporting sounds of gunshots and that a car had crashed outside her apartment, according to dispatch audio. Officers found one victim dead and another critically injured. First responders began CPR, declaring the second victim dead roughly 15 minutes later.
Security footage published by KRON4 shows a black sedan in an apartment parking lot as the driver tries to escape rapid, semi-automatic gunfire coming from nearby. The car then crashes into a light pole across the street, preventing it from hitting the apartment building itself.
“They were paid assassins,” a witness told KRON4. “They were not the average gang-banger types — these dudes did this before.”
Vallejo police spokesperson Sgt. Rashad Hollis said in an interview Wednesday that no suspects have been identified in the shooting.
The Solano County Coroner’s office declined to name the victims, citing the ongoing investigation. A fundraiser named one of the victims as Alvaro Adan Carranza Cervantes. The site, which seeks to raise $20,000, has raised just over $7,700.
“Alvaro Adan Carranza Cervantes was tragically taken from us in a senseless act of gun violence,” the website reads. “Alvaro was a devoted son, brother, cousin, and friend whose infectious humor touched everyone who knew him.”
The incident marks the city’s 22nd and 23rd homicides in 2024, according to Vallejo police. With over a month to go until the new year, the city has seen more homicides this year than in all of 2023.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vallejo has seen a sharp rise in homicides compared to pre-pandemic numbers. In 2018, there were six reported homicides in Vallejo. The following year Vallejo police reported 13 homicides, including the Feb. 9 police shooting of Willie McCoy. Since then, that figure has soared to 20 or more for each of the past four years. According to a mid-year report from Vallejo police, the department noted 86 shooting incidents between January and June of this year.
Vallejo saw its 21st homicide around 8:23 a.m. on Nov. 16, when Vallejo police responded to Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center for reports of a stabbing, according to a department press release. Officers soon learned the hospital had admitted a man and his wife, both in critical condition, for emergency surgery.
A preliminary investigation found that 63-year-old Frank James McMillan had allegedly stabbed his wife and then himself, according to police. After he emerged from surgery, McMillan allegedly admitted to killing his mother. Police conducted a welfare check at a residence in the 100 block of Campbell Avenue; officers found her body after forcing their way inside the home, according to police.
The Solano County Coroner’s Office also recently declared a death earlier this year as Vallejo’s 20th homicide. On June 16, officers responded to a family fight where one brother allegedly attacked the other, according to Vallejo police.
The brother who was attacked then restrained the other, witnesses told police. The restrained man soon became unresponsive. His brother then performed CPR, which was unsuccessful. Vallejo police and the District Attorney’s Office both declined to pursue charges in the killing.
