At least six people were injured in a Wednesday shooting on a northern California school campus, Oakland Police Capt. Casey Johnson said during a news conference.
Three of the injured were in critical condition at Highland Hospital in Oakland, the other three were taken to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley and their conditions were not known, officials said.
The shooting happened on a street where there are several schools and many school-age children, the television station reported.
The incident is “no longer active,” Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Ray Kelly said.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tweeted that all of the injured were adults and the shooting happened at Sojourner Truth Independent Study, an alternative kindergarten through 12th grade school.
Paramedics had transported six patients to hospitals, all with gunshot wounds, according to Oakland fire department spokesman Michael Hunt.
John Sasaki, a spokesman for the Oakland Unified school district, said in a statement that district officials “have no information beyond what Oakland police are reporting.” He said the Sojourner Truth Independent Study headquarters has no students.
The Oakland Police Department tweeted that officers were investigating a shooting on Fontaine Street, where the schools are located.
The Oakland Police Department is investigating a shooting that occurred in the 8200 block of Fontaine Street.
We ask members of the community to avoid the area at this time.
PIO is on the way to the scene. Media we will update with staging area. pic.twitter.com/9zvmmW7lC3
The day before Wednesday’s shooting, Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong announced plans to address the city’s ongoing gun violence by increasing officer presence in areas where gun violence is concentrated and where the ‘Police believe that people are often involved in shootings.
This latest shooting comes after more than two years of heightened gun violence that began early in the pandemic. So far this year, 96 people have been killed, mostly with guns. At this time last year, 102 people were killed.
Before the pandemic, homicides and gun violence in Oakland — along with a number of cities across the region — reached historic lows. But by mid-2020, gun violence was on the rise and the usual refuges of schools, community centers and violence prevention workers were largely unavailable. By the end of the year, 102 people had lost their lives, 24 more than the previous year.
The city’s youth have not been spared from this increase in murders. In 2020, at least 14 people under the age of 20 were killed, according to a Guardian analysis of state homicide data. The next year, more would lose their lives, including 18-year-old Demetrius Fleming-Davis, an Oakland native who was shot and killed while riding in the back of a truck.
“A lot of us have plans that we can’t even make happen because we’re going to die at 18 and 19. It’s just a big war zone that we’re facing and I don’t know how to stop it,” said Cianna Williams, a 19 Year-old friend of Fleming-Davis last year.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
This story was amended on September 28, 2022 to clarify that the shooting occurred at a school, not a high school.