Food
Rosendale is Athlete of the week
Field to Fork: The babies of the produce world — Page B4
Forum
Sports
— Page B1
Dealing with a shortage of doctors — Page A6
enterprise THE DAVIS
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2020
Woman killed in Winters DUI crash Husband arrested BY LAUREN KEENE
Yolo County Moms Demand Action members march in last year’s Picnic Day parade through downtown Davis.
Enterprise staff writer
COURTESY PHOTO
Moms try to prevent gun deaths Effort puts focus on responsible storage BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer Ruth Pagano-Trn’s life has a before and an after, and in between; a single horrific moment of gun violence on the night of her 18th birthday celebration — a moment that took a life and sent ripples of grief and trauma through a community of family, friends and firstresponders. Twenty-one years later, Pagano-Trn is sharing her story about that night, locally as a member of Yolo County Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and nationally as a part of the
Everytown Survivor Network. Moms Demand Action — a nationwide, nonpartisan grassroots movement focused on preventing gun violence — was founded by Shannon Watts in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. The movement later joined forces with Mayors Against Illegal Guns as part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country. Pagano-Trn shared her story publicly for the first time during a November gathering in Davis of Yolo County Moms Demand Action. It’s not that she had suppressed memories of that night; in fact, she went on to become a crime scene investigator for the West Sacramento Police Department for 11 years and found she brought to the job a
unique empathy and compassion for victims because of what she’d gone through. But she’s also reached a place where she believes her story carries with it a compelling message that she wants to share: The death and trauma that night could have been prevented, just like so many gunrelated deaths occurring daily nationwide could be prevented, particularly if people did a better job storing their guns. That message is the same one contained in Moms Demand Action’s Be SMART public information campaign, which aims to educate the community not only on how to safely store guns but also urges people to ask about the presence of unsecured guns in other homes — particularly ones their children are visiting — as well as the importance of recognizing the
risks of teen suicide — the presence of an unsecured gun in the home being one of them. It’s a message that resonates locally for good reason. Just last month, a Davis High School senior died in what Davis police said was an unintentional shooting at his home. A few years ago, a sophomore at Davis High School died by suicide in his home from a selfinflicted gunshot wound. Nationwide, gun-related homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings account for thousands of deaths every year. In 2019, there were 39,426 firearm deaths in America, 24,090 of which — nearly two-thirds — were suicides, according to Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Preston Schaub, who spoke Monday at a UC Davis
An Arbuckle man is facing murder charges in connection with an alleged drunken-driving collision in Winters that left his wife dead Saturday night. Winters police said Joshua Douglas Muller, 30, was at the wheel of a vehicle that crashed shortly before 9:30 pm. on Railroad MULLER Avenue north of Suspect Neimann Street, where responding officers found a woman gravely injured inside the car and rendered aid until medical personnel arrived on scene, according to a Winters Police Department Facebook post. “The front passenger, identified as Sarah Muller, a 39-year-old resident of Arbuckle, was pronounced deceased at the scene,” the post said. “The driver, identified as Joshua Muller, a 30-year- old resident of Arbuckle, displayed signs and symptoms of being under the influence of alcohol.” Winters Police Chief John Miller said Monday that the Mullers,
SEE DUI, PAGE A7
Book-project author visits Mental Health Court celebrates 12th graduate campus forum SEE MOMS, PAGE A3
BY LAUREN KEENE
Special to The Enterprise
Enterprise staff writer WOODLAND — At first glance, Rayshawn Taylor didn’t appear to be a suitable fit for Yolo County’s Mental Health Court. While the Yolo Superior Court specialty program targets offenders with serious mental illnesses — as Taylor has — it wasn’t clear at first whether Taylor’s condition was the driving force behind his violent criminal history. A West Sacramento resident, the 44-year-old Taylor had been arrested three times — the first for assaulting his uncle with a deadly weapon, the second for robbery and a third for resisting arrest. Two of his offenses resulted in state prison sentences. Yolo County Probation Officer Steven Svetich, who reviewed Taylor’s referral for the MHC team, summed up his first impression like this: “There’s no chance in hell we’re taking this person.” That outlook changed, however, when team members interviewed Taylor in person. “We saw the human being in front of us, not the criminal on paper,” Svetich said, one who was remorseful, committed to
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understanding his mental health and motivated to improve his life. “You changed the way that we look at our referrals. We have to give people the opportunity to show us who they are.”
18-month, court-based treatment and monitoring program that seeks to increase participants’ treatment engagement while reducing their arrests, hospitalizations and jail time.
Nov. 23, 2013: Journalist Gary Younge chooses this day at random to report on deaths by gun violence that occurred in a 24-hour period, for his book, “Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives.” The victims were ages 9 to 19. More than six years later, a few days before he visits YOUNGE UC Davis as the Writer author of this year’s Campus Community Book Project, the statistics are just as startling, with an online report showing 14 deaths across the United States one day this week. (The Feb. 24 report is from Gun Violence America, which describes itself as a nonprofit corporation, independent, with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.) Younge will be here Monday
Last week, Taylor became the 12th graduate of Mental Health Court, a minimum
SEE COURT, PAGE A7
SEE BOOK, PAGE A7
COURTESY PHOTO
Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg, right, congratulates Rayshawn Taylor for graduating from the county’s Mental Health Court.
INDEX
Bridal . . . . . . . . A4 Comics . . . . . . .B6 Obituaries . . . . A7 Calendar . . . . . A8 Forum . . . . . . . . A6 Sports . . . . . . .B1 Classifieds . . . .B3 Living . . . . . . . .B4 The Wary I . . . . A2
WEATHER Th Thursday: Sunny. H High 77. Low 46. M More, Page B8
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