Features

Berkeley Double Murder Sparks Police Call for Public Assistance

By Richard Brenneman
Thursday September 25, 2008 - 09:47:00 AM

Police are calling on the public to help in solving the murders of two men who were gunned down early last Thursday on Derby Street. 

The city’s emergency switchboard was flooded with calls minutes after midnight, reporting shots fired near the corner of Derby and Sacramento streets, Berkeley Police Lt. Andrew Greenwood told a public meeting Tuesday night. 

When officers arrived, they found the Berkeley resident Kelvin Earl Davis, 23, mortally wounded along the curbside and 42-year-old Oakland resident Kevin Antoine Parker slumped nearby behind the wheel of his wrecked car. 

Police have declined to speculate on a motive for the killings, and have asked for the public’s help in tracking down the killer or killers. 

Homicide detectives are asking anyone with information about the crime to contact the Homicide Detail at 981-5741 or through the dispatcher’s line at 981-5900. 

Anonymous tips can be made to the Bay Area Crime Stoppers Line at (800) 222-8477. Calls to that number remain anonymous, in part because the service is located in Canada and not subject to the state’s penal code, Greenwood said Tuesday. 

Officer Andrew J. Frankel, the department’s spokesperson, said Greenwood’s appeal hadn’t produced any leads as of early Wednesday afternoon. 

A total of $32,000 in reward money is available for anyone who provides information that leads to the conviction of the shooter. 

The scene of Thursday morning’s shooting was the site of yet another major shooting incident at 10:15 p.m. that night, when a woman was shot taking out the trash from her residence across the street from where Davis’s body had been found.  

Wounded by a single gunshot wound to the abdomen, the injured woman was rushed to an emergency room. Greenwood said she is expected to recover. 

Berkeley’s murder rate has soared in the last year, with killings in 2008 already above any year in the last decade. 

Police and city officials responded to neighborhood concerns with a major public gathering Tuesday night held in the community room at San Pablo Park’s Frances Albrier Community Center, which was packed with a standing-room-only crowd.