After seeing its murder rate fall 43 percent last year, Tucson started the new year with two homicides in one day. In addition, a third homicide occurred in Sahuarita, south of Tucson.
Two of the three homicides, all on Jan. 1, were gang-related, the Tucson police said. The other, handled by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, was the result of a family dispute.
The Tucson police said they have no plans to change the strategy they put in place after 2008, when the city had a record 68 homicides, said Officer Charles Rydzak, a spokesman for the department. Last year, there were 39 homicides in the city.
“Two murders won’t change what we’ve done,” Rydzak said, referring to the way the city has reallocated its resources to combat crime. Although he would not go into detail, he said the Police Department, which has about 1,000 officers, has reinforced patrolling in certain areas and strictly controlled late-night parties.
Partly as a result of those efforts, the city had its lowest homicide rate in a decade in 2009.
An arrest has been made in the family dispute, and the suspect in one of the other murders turned himself in to law enforcement authorities on Monday night. The police said detectives had not released any information regarding the identity of the suspect in the third case.
The details:
* Manuel Dejesus Nunley, 24, was shot Friday around 12:30 a.m. in what the police say was a gang-related shooting.
As Nunley and his girlfriend drove to a house party in the 8500 block of East Pantano Crossing, he started arguing with the driver of another vehicle, Sgt. Fabian Pacheco of the Tucson police said.
The driver fatally shot Nunley and injured Nunley’s girlfriend with a gunshot to the leg, Pacheco said. The girlfriend was not identified. The police said the shooter drove away.
Nunley had a felony warrant out for his arrest in connection with a home invasion that occurred in September, charging him with armed robbery, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and first-degree burglary, according to a police statement.
* In the second murder, Victor Cesario Pulido, 19, who surrendered on Monday, is being charged with first-degree murder. He is accused of fatally shooting Hector M. Garcia, 24, the Tucson police said. He is being held in the Pima County Adult Detention Center.
The police said detectives believed that Garcia was attending a party at a house in the 200 block of East Alturas Street when Pulido walked by and flashed gang signs at the partygoers, some of whom detectives think belonged to a rival gang.
Garcia and two other men followed Pulido before a fight broke out at East Alturas Street and North Estrella Avenue at 4:28 p.m., Pacheco said in a statement. After he was shot, Garcia was taken to University Medical Center by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.
* A Tucson man is being held on $750,000 bond in connection with the stabbing death of his father Friday night in Sahuarita, just south of Tucson, officials said.
The man, Brian Gene Harmon, 32, is accused of stabbing to death Phillip Harmon, 56, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies from the Green Valley District responded Friday to a 911 call from a house at 6404 W. Pinto Road, Barkman said. At 5:45 p.m., a member of the Harmon family had called the emergency line to request an ambulance following a fight, she said.
When deputies arrived they found Phillip Harmon dead outside his house, Barkman said. Witnesses said Brian Harmon and his father had been involved in a physical fight, Barkman said in a press statement. Brian Harmon left the scene after the dispute, she added.
Pima County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Brian Harmon on Saturday, when he returned to the West Pinto home, Barkman said. He was charged with first-degree murder and failure to comply with a court order related to a charge of driving under the influence in Nogales, Ariz.
The police do not have a motive for the stabbing, Barkman said.
An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly the number of homicides in Tucson on Jan. 1. There were two homicides, not three. A third homicide occurred in Sahuarita, just south of Tucson.