U.S. police arrests suspect in connection with Sacramento mass shooting

LOS ANGELES, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Sacramento police announced on Monday the first arrest of a suspect related to Sunday's mass shooting downtown, in which six people were killed and 12 others were injured.

But Sacramento County District Attorney said that the man in custody had not been charged in connection with any of the six deaths.

Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester told local KCRA 3 news channel on Monday that Dandrae Martin, a 26-year-old man, was taken into custody and booked on charges of assault with a firearm and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.

"As you know this is a complex investigation and we're looking for multiple suspects and so we're currently working to identify what his role was the night of the shooting," she said.

Martin was named as a "related suspect" in a press release issued by Sacramento Police Department later, which also disclosed that he was being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail on the weapons charge and a separate count of assault with a deadly weapon.

According to local newspaper Sacramento Bee, records of Riverside Superior Court in Southern California showed Martin had a 2014 conviction for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse. He also has 2018 convictions in Maricopa County, Arizona, for a count of criminal damage and a marijuana violation, as well as 2016 conviction of aggravated assault and domestic violence by impeding breathing.

However, Sacramento County District Attorney Ann Marie Schubert noted in a statement on Monday that Martin had not been arrested for homicide.

"This is an ongoing investigation and we anticipate more arrests in this case," Schubert said.

A law enforcement source revealed that detectives are studying videos from the shooting scene when gunfire erupted at 2 a.m. local time (0900 GMT) on Sunday to determine how many potential shooters were involved in the incident and they believed that the shooting involved exchanges of gunfire between multiple shooters, Sacramento Bee reported.

The potential suspects are validated gang members and the shooting left more than 100 shell casings at the scene, the report said.