OAKLAND — At least two shooters, aided by at least one other person, are believed responsible for a brazen, gang-related shooting at an East Oakland school Wednesday afternoon that left two students and four other adults wounded in a hail of gunfire, Oakland police said Thursday.
The incident occurred around 12:45 pm on Wednesday. At least two shooters approached the entrance to Rudsdale High School – located within a cluster of schools on the King Estates education campus – and walked through the front doors, which were apparently unlocked, according to police.
"It seems like they breached the front of the school and then immediately begin to fire," said Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who based his account on video of the incident, which have not been released. The shooting appears to have been a targeted hit that was the result of a "group and gang conflict," Armstrong said. He added that the people shot did not appear to have been the intended targets, "though we are still looking into all of the evidence at this time."
Using handguns, possibly equipped with high-capacity magazines, the shooters fired at least 30 rounds at the education complex. After filling the halls of Rudsdale High School with a flurry of gunfire, the shooters fled in a vehicle driven by a third suspect.
As of Thursday morning, police have not made any arrests and are still working to identify the suspects.
Wednesday's mass shooting is one of the Bay Area's worst instances of school gun violence in recent memory. Among the victims are two students, who are at least 18 years old, a school counselor, a security guard, and two others working at the school.
Three of the shooting victims remained hospitalized Thursday — two of them in critical but stable condition – and a third in stable condition, Armstrong said. Three other victims have been released from the hospital.
The sprawling education complex is on the 8200 block of Fontaine Street in East Oakland, where over 600 students attend classes at multiple schools. The gunfire focused around the Rudsdale school, which includes programs for students at risk of not graduating, who attend Rudsdale Continuation, and the Newcomer program, for recently arrived immigrants between the ages of 16 and 21 who are fleeing their home countries due to violence.
Possible warning signs of violence at the Rudsdale school have emerged. About six weeks ago police responded to a "stabbing in a firearm-involved incident," Armstrong said Thursday, and it is unclear as to why the school doors were apparently left open.
Currently, all Oakland Unified schools rely on unarmed school safety officers, known as "culture keepers," to immediately respond to instances of violence after Oakland eliminated its school police force in 2021.
On Thursday morning, repair crews worked to replace glass shattered in the shooting. Meanwhile, officials with Oakland Unified School District and the BayTech Technology School milled about the campus, which sat eerily quiet on what would normally be a bustling school day.
It all stood in stark contrast to the chaos that erupted a day earlier somewhere near the entrance of the education campus in the Eastmont Hills neighborhood.
Ryan Hughes, director of facilities for the BayTech charter school, recalled standing in the cafeteria Wednesday afternoon when he heard several shots toward the entrance of the building. He rushed to the main entrance, which all of the schools on campus share, to lock the doors.
In the foyer, Hughes said, he encountered a bloody scene with at least four shooting victims. He recalled seeing one high school student bleeding on the ground after having been shot multiple times in the back. A building and grounds staff member also had been shot in the stomach, he said.
Another building and grounds member suffered a graze wound to the head, Hughes said. And a security guard of the charter school was shot in the leg, near his knee.
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 28: Administrator Ryan Hughes, left, talks with a student at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church on Mountain Boulevard and Keller Avenue while law enforcement officers from several agencies respond after at least six adults were shot at the Bay Area Technology School complex in East Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
On Thursday, Hughes struggled to make sense of the violence — especially knowing that it came almost exactly a month after another school shooting about three miles down the hill in deep East Oakland, which left a 13-year-old student of Madison Park Academy hospitalized.
"I'm lost for words," Hughes said.
Wednesday's attack was the second shooting on an Oakland school campus in nearly a month. On Aug. 29, a 12-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of shooting a 13-year-old boy. The city is also reeling from a wave of gun deaths that started during the pandemic and has left hundreds of families mourning lost love ones or dealing with the aftermath of sometimes life-altering gunshot injuries.
"We're seeing an increase in gun violence that is devastating," James Jackson, CEO of Alameda Health System, said on Thursday.
This year, Oakland's Highland Hospital alone is treating an average 44 gunshot wounds a month, according to data released by the Alameda Health System. That's nearly double the rate of monthly gunshot injuries the hospital saw in 2019.
"We know that when people are traumatized, violence reproduces itself," Guillermo Cespedes, the chief of Oakland's violence prevention program said during the Thursday press conference. "This is a multi-generational problem that we're trying to interrupt."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment