Suspect in Sacramento Mass Shooting Released on $500,000 Bond

One of the suspects arrested after Sunday’s mass shooting in Sacramento that claimed the lives of six people has been released on a $500,000 bond.

Daviyonne Dawson, 31, was released from the Sacramento County Jail Wednesday, only two days after being arrested and booked on one count of unlawful possession of a weapon. It remains unclear if Dawson paid all of the $500,000 bond or only a portion of the total.

Two other men arrested after the shooting are brothers Smiley and Dandrae Martin, aged 27 and 26 respectively who remain in custody on gun possession charges.

Currently, investigators don’t believe Dawson fired his weapon during the gang fight between two rival groups that led to the shooting, but that he was in the same place at the same time and was armed.

“Evidence in the case indicates that at least five shooters fired guns during the shooting, and that an exchange of gunfire took place between at least two groups of men. As detectives continue to identify shooters and weapons involved, the number of identified shooters may grow beyond five,” police said in a statement.
“As detectives learn more about the shootings, it is increasingly clear that gang violence is at the center of this tragedy.
“While we cannot at this time elaborate on the precise gang affiliation of individuals involved, gangs and gang violence are inseparable from the events that drove these shootings.”
Six people were killed during the shooting near 10th Street and K Street in downtown Sacramento shortly after 2am Sunday.

According to the Daily Mail, Smiley Martin posted a video online only hours before the shooting, posing with a handgun. Law enforcement scrubbed the video from Facebook after Martin’s arrest on Tuesday.

Martin was among those injured and was taken to the hospital before he was arrested Tuesday. After he was booked into the Sacramento County Jail. His younger brother Dandrae was also arrested on guns charges and made his first court appearance in Sacramento Tuesday afternoon.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Smiley is a career criminal with a lengthy record dating back to 2013. Martin was serving a ten year prison sentence but was released after four years, despite prosecutor’s statements that he posed a “significant threat” and was likely to offend again. He was serving time for domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury.

A letter from the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office to the Board of Parole Hearings on April 29, 2021, asked for the state DOC to deny Smiley’s request for early release from prison “as he poses a significant, unreasonable risk of safety to the community.” Danielle Abildgaard, deputy district attorney, said Smiley “clearly has little regard for human life and the law” and has displayed a pattern of criminal behavior his entire adult life. Abildgaard said that Smiley had prior felony convictions of robbery and possession of a firearm as well as a prior misdemeanor conviction of providing false information to police.
Smiley was released in February.

A third suspect, Daviyonne Dawson, 31, was charged with carrying a gun near the scene of the shooting.