Six people were shot, one of whom died, on Saturday evening near a Juneteenth celebration at Oakland’s Lake Merritt.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
Oakland police received reports of shots fired in the 2200 block of Lakeshore Avenue at 6:22 p.m. Saturday, police said, just as roughly 1,000 people were celebrating around the lake.
The gunfire victims were five males aged 16 to 27, and one 21-year-old woman, police said.
…
The shooting sent hundreds of people running away from the scene. By 7:30 p.m., police had largely locked down the scene with police tape and the commotion had subsided.
Mayor Libby Schaaf condemned the shooting, saying that the “joyous occasion at our Lake Merritt was marred by a senseless act of gun violence.” Large crowds had spent the day in the area celebrating the first federally designated Juneteenth holiday.
Crime has skyrocketed in Oakland, as in other major cities, since the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota — and the “defund the police” movement that has seen many police forces under new pressure.
“Through May 23,” the Chronicle reported on May 31, “the city had recorded 51 homicides for the year, a 132% increase compared with the same period last year and a 70% increase compared with 2019. San Francisco, across the Bay, will consider a proposal this week to cut police funds and use the money to pay for “community-led” homeless responses.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.