últimas notícias

Given the number of rounds collected at the scene Wednesday, he said, one or more of the shooters probably used handguns with large-capacity ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets apiece — which are now banned in California.

Surveillance video captured “two specific shooters and one driver,” the chief said, but “we had calls that there could have been up to four.”

Six adults were wounded in the shooting that occurred at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday at Rudsdale Newcomer High School, at 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 the campus, along with 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. Officials at the Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County identified the two visiting workers as carpenters.

As of Thursday afternoon, three of the injured remained hospitalized, two with serious wounds. The other three had been released.

Police were searching for the shooters as well as the driver, Armstrong said. Investigators had not identified any suspects, made any arrests, or confirmed any connection between the attackers and the school.

The chief linked the shooting to conflicts between groups and gangs within the city, though it was not clear Thursday whether any of the people wounded had been targets.

Armstrong said his department received multiple calls about shooters and possibly barricaded suspects at the school, and had to break down doors to enter classrooms that were locked. Officers evacuated students and quickly realized the gunmen had fled, he said.

A spokesperson for Oakland Unified School District declined to say whether the entrance door to the school was unlocked at the time of the shooting, or whether it was supposed to be.

Officers previously responded to at least one gun-related incident and a stabbing at King Estate campus, Armstrong said, adding that police made an arrest related to an incident there in August.

He said authorities had no information or warning in advance of Wednesday’s mass shooting.

Campus facilities will be closed indefinitely while the district repairs damage, both from the gunfire and from police breaking into rooms, district spokesperson John Sasaki said.

While Sasaki and Mayor Libby Schaaf directed their anger toward federal officials and called for tighter gun laws, school board members expressed frustration about what they saw as a lack of communication about prior violence at the campus.

“I shouldn’t have to learn about this at a press conference six weeks after the fact,” school board member Mike Hutchinson said Thursday, referring to the stabbing and weapons incident that included an arrest. He is waiting for 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 keepers” — unarmed school security officers who maintain order and safety,
Sasaki said. He was unable to describe in detail the protective infrastructure at King Estate campus.

It was unclear whether the security guard who was wounded was armed or whether the guard was a culture keeper.

In the past, the Oakland school district had its own armed sworn officers to respond to calls and provide a safety presence on the district’s campuses. But in June 2020,

the district’s school board voted unanimously
to eliminate the Oakland Unified Police Department. The move followed national protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, although community groups had long called for the removal of law enforcement from school grounds.

Hutchinson said Thursday that even though the shooting was the “worst day in OUSD history,” he does not envision police returning to schools.

Sam Davis, the vice president of the school board, seemed so overcome with emotion that his voice shook when he discussed the violence and the trauma it causes. Violence is so routine, he said, many Oakland students “just work through it, and are numb to it, and have to just keep going every day.”

Things could have been worse, Davis said. The shooting happened only moments before some classes were scheduled to let out — and halls would have been filled with students.

“I’m firmly committed to the work we’re doing for violence prevention and intervention,” Davis said. “It’s an epidemic across our country. It feels like no place is safe, and that’s just not right.”

Rachel Swan and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan, @jilltucker