Some held flowers. Others held candles. There were hugs. There were tears.
"Just something that God...didn't mean to happen," Frank Fernandez said as he choked up with emotion. "But it just happens anyway."
Fernandez was one of dozens of friends who gathered around a tree on Rinehart Drive in East San Jose on Monday night. That's near the spot where two of his friends - teenage boys - had been shot and killed Sunday night.
"I was trippin'. I was like, 'Wow.' I was like pretty close to them," Fernandez said.
Friends say both teenage boys were students at Independence High School. They're at a loss why someone would kill them. Witnesses told police they saw a person on a BMX bicycle riding away. They were the city's 17th and 18th homicide victims this year.
MORE: San Jose Police Investigate Double, Single Homicides
"Someone must have to really hate him to kill him," Amanda Hoang, a friend of one of the teenage boys.
But the double homicide in East San Jose was only the beginning. Four hours later, someone shot and killed a man on Hayes Avenue in South San Jose. That brings the homicide total to 19 as compared to 16 at this same time last year. Mayor Chuck Reed says the police department continues to work hard even though they are stretched thin.
"We have a great department even though it's thinly staffed. We have one of the smallest per capita ratios of any big city in the country. They're putting in a lot of overtime but they're working hard to keep the community safe," Reed said.
And that's what neighbors on Rinehart Drive want to see. A safe community to raise their families.
"All we gotta do is move on and try to get ahead with our lives," Fernandez said.
