Mass shooting in rural "island" in California's Central Valley linked to drug trade

Here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times most recent coverage of the murders of six, including a teenaged mom, her infant, and a 72-year-old grandmother in Goshen, California, population 3,006.

Rural parts of the San Joaquin Valley have become some of the most violent places in California, with a bustling drug trade and among the highest rates of murder and lowest rates of solving murders.

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According to a report last year from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, Kern County had the highest homicide rate in the state in 2021, with 13.7 killings per 100,000 people. Merced County came in second, at 9.5, followed by Tulare, where the massacre happened Monday, at 8.8. The homicide rate statewide was 6. In Marin County, it was 0.4.

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Little-known rural enclaves such as Goshen — which many Californians glimpse from the window of car speeding between Los Angeles and Yosemite or Sacramento or Lake Tahoe — have become coveted transit points for methamphetamine, fentanyl and other drugs. Layers of criminal organizations including Mexican cartels, prison syndicates and local street gangs all vie for a piece of the real estate.

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Assemblyman Devon Mathis (R-Visalia), who represented the area until the most recent redistricting, said Goshen is one of many “county islands” in the valley — small unincorporated communities, impoverished, lacking their own police forces. Gangs and drug smugglers dig in there, knowing law enforcement presence is sparse.

“We have a vulnerability, and it is being exposed,” Mathis said.He is dismayed how many of his colleagues in the Assembly are flabbergasted to hear about ferocious gangs in the San Joaquin Valley, viewing it as a problem for cities, not for rural areas.

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The rural areas — with few officers on patrol and located along one of the West Coast’s major north-south transportation corridors — have long been attractive for drug traffickers. Tulare County has, despite its population of less than half a million, historically played a prominent role in the transnational movement of drugs, money and guns.

A prior post about the relative lawlessness of rural areas is here.