Santa Cruz County experienced its first homicide of 2011 on Sunday. The victim, Jose Alfredo Coronel, 32, was stabbed in the chest in Watsonville shortly after midnight. Police transported him to the hospital, where he died of his injuries. There were no reports of disturbances in the area before the stabbing was reported, and police have yet to find the murder weapon. They do not, however, think that the murder was gang-related.
Santa Cruz County experienced its first homicide of 2011 on Sunday. The victim, Jose Alfredo Coronel, 32, was stabbed in the chest in Watsonville shortly after midnight. Police transported him to the hospital, where he died of his injuries. There were no reports of disturbances in the area before the stabbing was reported, and police have yet to find the murder weapon. They do not, however, think that the murder was gang-related.
There were a total of 15 homicides in Santa Cruz County in 2010, including one in Watsonville. In neighboring Santa Clara County, the homicide rate for the year dropped significantly, from 28 in 2009 to 20 in 2010. This was considered surprising, since the rate of violent crime tends to increase in a harsh economic climate. Read more at Fox 35, the Santa Cruz Sentinel and the Mercury News.
