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"Two more murders in Salinas over the weekend pushed this year\u2019s murder count in the city&amp;nbsp;to 31, nine&amp;nbsp;shy of last year\u2019s record 40 homicides.\n\nThe latest murders happened&amp;nbsp;Friday&amp;nbsp;afternoon and&amp;nbsp;Saturday&amp;nbsp;morning in the Chinatown neighborhood, where many homeless people live.\n\n\n\n\"This weekend we were able to put some extra resources down there, arrested people dealing drugs, towed a motor home where a guy was dealing drugs out of,\"&amp;nbsp;Mayor Joe Gunter said.\n\nGunter added he would like to see have a regular police presence in&amp;nbsp;Chinatown,&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;but he just doesn\u2019t have enough cops to do that. He added that&amp;nbsp;every neighborhood would like to have more officers patrolling their streets.\n\nMayor Gunter said the homeless who regularly camp out in&amp;nbsp;Chinatown&amp;nbsp;aren\u2019t to blame for the high number of murders there. Gunter believes the killings are fueled by&amp;nbsp;drugs and a turf war between gangs dealing dope.\n\n\"Detectives are working actively to solve some of these cases.&amp;nbsp;Once the correlation between some of them start falling into place, we may have a multitude of people arrested who were involved in a multitude of these crimes,\"&amp;nbsp;Gunter said.\n\nThe most recent homicide happened in the parking lot of 1 Bridge Street. A 23-year-old man,&amp;nbsp;Rafael Arturo Chavez, was found dead on the ground.\n\n\"The victim was found to be shot at least once but it is unknown how long the victim had been there,\"&amp;nbsp;Sgt. Christopher Lane said. \"Detectives have learned of different people saying they heard 'fireworks'&amp;nbsp;in the area during the night.\"\n\nAnother 23-year-old man was shot to death by a masked gunman&amp;nbsp;in Chinatown the day before,&amp;nbsp;on Lake Street near Bridge Alley. The victim was identified as&amp;nbsp;Kareem Jamal King.\n\nNo arrests were made.&amp;nbsp;\n\n\"As with the other recent shootings that have occurred in the Chinatown area this year, there were very few witnesses that would come forward with information. The crime occurred during a time of day where several people are usually in the area, but the information about what occurred is scarce,\"&amp;nbsp;Lane said.&amp;nbsp;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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