An 89-year-old man was stabbed to death on Tucsonβs south side Friday morning.
At 7 a.m., Pima County sheriff deputies were sent to the 3200 block of West Dakota Street, near South Camino De La Tierra, after a 911 caller said someone has been stabbed, a news release from the sheriffβs department said. Upon arriving, Delbert McBride was found with stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, the department said.
Terri Sides, 58, was arrested in connection to the stabbing and is facing a charge of second-degree murder. Sides was the step-granddaughter of McBride, the news release said.
Brian Spaulding's parents found his body in a home he shared with roommates after he didn't show up for work and didn't answer his phone. His fatal shooting remains a mystery: Spaulding, a chiropractic assistant and massage therapist whose interests ranged from home-brewed beer to jiu jitsu, didn't do drugs, wasn't in a gang and lived close to the house where he was born.
Spaulding's parents, now both in their 70s, are haunted by his death. But getting closure on the 2017 slaying seems increasingly unlikely as police in Portland, Oregon, confront a spike in shootings and murders at the same time the department struggles to fill more than 100 officer vacancies. The detective originally assigned to investigate Brian's death left in 2020 in a wave of retirements and the detective assigned to it now is swamped with fresh cases from a homicide rate that's increased 207% since 2019. "It's unsolved. And because of the huge increase of homicides here in Portland, the detectives are just strapped," said George Spaulding, who has his son's signature tattooed on his arm with Brian's trademark saying, "Prove it." In cities across the U.S., an increase in violent crime is colliding with fewer police officers. From Philadelphia to Portland to Los Angeles, officers worn out by the pandemic and disillusioned over calls to divest from policing following George Floyd's murder by police are quitting or retiring early at the same time homicide rates and shootings are rising. Departments are scrambling to recruit in a tight labor market at the same time they rethink what services they can provide and what role police should play in communities. Many have shifted veteran officers to patrol, breaking up specialized teams built up over decades like those for traffic enforcement, narcotics, vice and canine units, in order to keep up with 911 calls.
