Two slain at Fresno party. Police hunt the shooter

Fresno police are seeking suspects after a man and a woman were shot to death at a party early Sunday in east-central Fresno.

The slayings occurred about 3:30 a.m. near an apartment at Cedar and Dakota avenues.

Someone fired rounds into the unit, police said, fatally wounding Jamonte Perry, 28, and Mia Bass, 22, both of Fresno, whose identities were confirmed by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

No suspect information had been released by late Sunday afternoon as detectives investigated what would be Fresno’s 66th and 67th homicides of the year.

Shootings rose dramatically in the city this spring and summer and continued into the fall, prompting Fresno Police Chief Andy Hall to form a citywide violent crime suppression task force.

While officials say the stepped-up efforts produced results, the city long ago surged past a 10-year high in killings.

There were 45 willful homicides in all of 2019, according to monthly crime reports posted by the Fresno Police Department, and 32 in 2018.

Fifty-six homicides were investigated in 2017; the only other year since 2010 in which there were more than 50 was 2012, when there were 51.

This story was originally published December 20, 2020 at 3:14 PM.