At least two gunmen who injured six people in a mass shooting at an Oakland public school fired more than 30 rounds, the city’s police chief said Thursday, while revealing the assailants were entered the school building to target specific people before fleeing in a vehicle.
“We thank God that many more students were not injured as a result of this action,” Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters during a video news conference.
Given the number of rounds collected at the scene on Wednesday, he said, one or more of the shooters likely used handguns with high-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets each – which are now banned. in California.
Surveillance video captured “two specific shooters and a driver”, the chief said, but “we have received calls indicating there could have been up to four”.
Six adults were injured in the shooting that occurred at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday at Rudsdale Newcomer High School, on the King Estate campus on Fontaine Street in the Eastmont Hills area, just south of Interstate 580. Rudsdale is one of three schools clustered on campus. , as well as BayTech, a charter school, and Sojourner Truth Independent Study, which currently has no students.
The victims were two students, a counselor, a security guard and two people working at the school, authorities said. Alameda County Building and Construction Trades Council officials identified the two visiting workers as carpenters.
Thursday afternoon, three of the injured remained hospitalized, including two seriously injured. The other three had been released.
Police were looking for the shooters as well as the driver, Armstrong said. Investigators have not identified any suspects, made any arrests, or confirmed any connection between the attackers and the school.
The chief linked the shooting to clashes between groups and gangs in the city, although it was unclear on Thursday whether any of those injured had been the target.
Armstrong said his department received multiple calls about shooters and possibly barricaded suspects at school, and had to kick down doors to get into locked classrooms. Officers evacuated the students and quickly realized the suspects had fled, he said.
A spokesperson for the Oakland Unified School District declined to say whether the school’s front door was unlocked at the time of the shooting or whether it was meant to be.
Officers have already responded to at least one gun and stabbing incident on the King Estate campus, Armstrong said, adding that police made one arrest related to an incident in August.
He said authorities had no information or warning ahead of Wednesday’s shooting.
Campus facilities will be closed indefinitely while the district repairs the damage, both from the bursting of gunfire and police breaking into rooms, district spokesman John Sasaki said.
As Sasaki and Mayor Libby Schaaf directed their anger at federal officials and called for tougher gun laws, school board members expressed frustration at what they saw as a lack of communication about past violence on campus.
“I shouldn’t have to learn this at a press conference six weeks after the fact,” school board member Mike Hutchinson said Thursday, referring to the stabbing and gunning incident that included an arrest. He is awaiting additional information to better understand what security was in place at Rudsdale on Wednesday, and whether more protection would have helped.
Public schools in Oakland typically have security cameras and “culture guards” — unarmed school security guards who maintain order and security, Sasaki said. He was unable to describe in detail the protective infrastructure at the King Estate campus.
It was unclear whether the security guard who was injured was armed or a culture guard.
In the past, the Oakland School District had its own armed sworn officers to respond to calls and provide a security presence on district campuses. But in June 2020, the district school board voted unanimously to eliminate the Oakland Unified Police Department. The move followed nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd, though community groups have long called for law enforcement to be removed from school grounds.
Hutchinson said Thursday that while the shooting was the “worst day in OUSD history,” he did not envision police returning to schools.
Sam Davis, the vice president of the school board, seemed so overwhelmed with emotion that his voice trembled when he spoke of the violence and the trauma it engenders. incident. The violence is so routine, he said, that many Oakland students “get by with it, are numb to it, and just have to keep going every day.”
Things could have been worse, Davis said. The shooting happened just moments before some classes were due to end – and halls were reportedly packed with students.
“I am strongly committed to the work we do for violence prevention and intervention,” Davis said. “It is an epidemic in our whole country. It feels like no place is safe and that’s just not fair.
Rachel Swan and Jill Tucker are the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @rachelswan, @jilltucker
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