Davis City Council Confronts Trauma and Urgency in Wake of Picnic Day Shooting

DAVIS, CA – In a special session on Tuesday night, the Davis City Council received an update from Police Chief Todd Henry on the shooting that erupted at Community Park during Picnic Day, leaving three people hospitalized and shaking the sense of safety in the community.

Describing the shooting as a “traumatic event,” Chief Henry acknowledged the scale of the incident and the strain it placed on the city’s police resources. 

“This is absolutely our top priority right now,” he said, noting that five officers have been assigned full-time to the investigation, with support from the FBI, the California Department of Justice, and regional law enforcement agencies. “This investigation would be very complex for a large-scale department. For a department of our size, it is very difficult.”

The shooting took place around 3 p.m. Saturday as officers stationed near F Street heard gunfire from inside the park, where a crowd of several hundred people had gathered—many of them unaware of the violence until law enforcement arrived. Three individuals were injured by gunfire. Medical aid was rendered quickly, with Davis Fire and paramedics arriving on scene to transport the victims.

But the scene was chaotic. Officers had to simultaneously secure the crime scene, tend to the wounded, and begin clearing the park, a process that Chief Henry said absorbed more than 50 officers and additional fire personnel. 

“We were committed to this incident for about an hour and a half,” he said. “Then the group relocated to Central Park, which required another hour of police resources later that evening.”

Despite tips trickling in through a designated hotline and email, Chief Henry said the department has released no names or suspect descriptions due to the need to “validate information” before making anything public. “We do not want to put out information that somebody may be [a suspect] when in fact they were not,” he explained.

He acknowledged public frustration about the slow pace of updates but said maintaining the integrity of the investigation is paramount. “These investigations take time,” he said, “but we are working as diligently and as quickly as we can.”

Much of the discussion centered on how the shooting could have occurred during an event that, according to Henry, had been sanctioned with a noise permit by the city. The party was hosted by a university fraternity that had previously held events in the park without incident.

“This year, they reached out to us asking for a noise permit,” Henry explained. “Their permit indicated a much smaller event with a DJ. We approved it in the hopes of putting some guardrails around the event.”

But the event grew far beyond expectations, with online posts reportedly advertising performances and calling on attendees from across Northern California. One deleted fraternity post warned against “planned altercations or retaliatory actions,” leading several public commenters to question whether the organizers had prior knowledge of potential violence.

The shooting—and the city’s response—sparked intense public comment. Parents of children playing nearby in Little League games shared harrowing accounts of receiving emergency calls and struggling to process the fear and trauma their families experienced. One mother described how her child was swept to safety by a coach after shots rang out just across the street. “Ask any teacher—these kids are traumatized,” she said, pleading with the city to “protect these kids in years to come.”

Another speaker noted that the event was advertised online months in advance, including the identity of a performer with hundreds of thousands of followers. “A free concert in our town with that kind of draw? That shouldn’t be allowed,” the speaker said. “This was predictable.”

A longtime Davis resident spoke emotionally about having attended Picnic Day since 1970. “We should not have to tolerate this type of behavior,” he said, expressing pride in the response from first responders but disappointment in the circumstances that required it.

Others took a more confrontational tone, calling out the mayor for what they characterized as divisive public rhetoric and questioning the city’s leadership in the wake of the shooting. 

Mayor Bapu Vaitla did not respond to the criticisms directly but later noted that the council’s job is to “protect people, and especially children.”

The council’s own comments revealed both shared grief and a sense of urgency to respond.

Councilmember Josh Chapman, visibly emotional, said he struggled with how to reconcile the community’s pain with the limitations of what city leaders can immediately offer. 

“This could have gone extremely differently,” he said. “We are fortunate that the injuries were not life-threatening, but this is not something small. What happened on Picnic Day is not an acceptable outcome.”

Chapman called on the city to “wrap our arms around this community” and support those who may be what he called “silent victims” of the event—people who weren’t physically harmed but carry emotional trauma.

Vice Mayor Donna Neville, who lives just blocks from the park, said residents in her neighborhood were terrified as helicopters hovered overhead and officers issued dispersal orders to an uncooperative crowd. “It was very frightening,” she said. “People didn’t know what was going on.”

She asked what resources were available for families and children processing the trauma. Chief Henry pointed to county behavioral health services, the mobile crisis clinician embedded in the police department, and the 988 national crisis line.

Councilmember Gloria Partida, who has previously shared her family’s experience with violent trauma, said the emotional scars of Saturday’s shooting will linger. “It’s easy to say we got past it, but we didn’t,” she said. “We have to remember that we are responsible not just for safety, but for the mental well-being of our residents.”

Attention soon turned toward long-term solutions. Mayor Vaitla called for renewed engagement with UC Davis, noting that the city alone cannot manage an event that swells Davis’s population by tens of thousands in a single day. “We know that Picnic Day, as it currently exists, is beyond our control,” he said. “We need a different model.”

The council unanimously voted to form a subcommittee—comprised of Vaitla and Councilmember Chapman—that will work with UC Davis and other partners to reevaluate the city’s role in managing Picnic Day. The subcommittee will also address the public’s demand for better communication and transparency.

Interim City Manager Kelly Stachowitz acknowledged that the challenges aren’t new. 

“This conversation has been a recurring theme since at least 2010,” she said, citing past attempts at pledges, permit limits, and enhanced enforcement. “We had some success, but the situation has evolved. The common thread continues to be alcohol.”

Chief Henry concluded by saying his department is reassessing its entire approach to Picnic Day, including the city’s tradition of minimizing arrests. 

“We may have to reverse that trend,” he said. “Our concern is the safety of this community.”

As the meeting closed, the sense of collective responsibility was palpable. The trauma is real, the community is shaken, and the path forward is unclear. But what was evident Tuesday night is that many in Davis are ready to have the hard conversations.

“There’s trauma here,” Mayor Vaitla said. “There’s fear, and there’s anger. And we need to meet it not just with investigations—but with leadership, with listening, and with change.”

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