Oakland: Weekend shooting victim is city’s 74th homicide of year

OAKLAND — A man gravely injured in one of several downtown Oakland shootings last weekend has died Wednesday, authorities said.

Officers responded to the shooting shortly before 12:15 a.m. Sunday in the 1400 block of Webster Street, and learned that a 25-year-old Alameda resident was sitting in his car outside a club when gunfire along the street struck him.

At a little after 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, the man died, becoming the city’s 74th homicide investigated by Oakland police. The California Highway Patrol has also investigated four homicides on city freeways. Last year at this time Oakland police had investigated 78 homicides in the city.

Police did not share any updates on any associated suspects or vehicles in those incidents, or in Sunday’s pair of separate fatal shootings, the city’s 72nd and 73rd homicides.

At a press conference Monday describing the city’s latest violent weekend, Oakland police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said officers provided care for the man until paramedics took him to a hospital, where he was listed in grave condition.

Officers were still working that shooting scene when they heard gunshots for a separate shooting near the 1700 block of Broadway that killed a man who became the city’s 71st homicide of the year, and also injured a man and woman, Armstrong said.

Acknowledging the department’s numbers down from 741 officers at the end of 2020 to 653 as of Monday, Armstrong said he hoped new officers from a graduating class August 16 alongside at least two dozen additional officers set to graduate from an academy within three months would shore up staffing.

“But in the meantime, we’re going to adjust our strategies. We are going to be more present in the downtown,” Armstrong said in part. “We will see some environmental changes, meaning that we will shut down blocks where we see large groups of people gathered” to control areas with limited resources.

For information leading to the arrest of a suspect, police are offering up to $10,000 in each of the fatal shootings. Anyone with information may call police at 510-238-3821 or 510-238-7950 or Crime Stoppers of Oakland at 510-777-8572.

Staff writer Harry Harris contributed to this report. Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.

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Author: George Kelly

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