Gunman on the loose after school shooting left six adults wounded at school for recent immigrants

Police are hunting a gunman on the loose after six adults were injured in a shooting yesterday near a California school that serves recent immigrants fleeing violence in their homeland.

The incident took place at Rudsdale Newcomer High School in East Oakland around 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, authorities said, with at least some of the victims found inside the school.

Three victims were taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland. Two were in critical but stable conditions, with gunshot wounds. The other was stable.

Those three victims are 18, 19 and 58 years old. Three more people were rushed to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where one was treated and released, one is awaiting release and another is in stable condition.

“The victims were linked to the school, and we’re currently determining the relationship,” Oakland assistant chief of police Darren Allison said, though he declined to say whether students or teachers were involved.

Allison said police were looking for at least one suspect but had no one in custody.

The school serves recent immigrants, ages 16-21, who have fled violence and instability in their home countries, according to the website. It is one of four adjacent schools on a block in eastern Oakland.

The shooting took place in a building on Fontaine Street – a location that is home to a number of other schools, including Bay Area Technology School and Sojourner Truth Independent Study.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed that all the victims were adults.

Police are looking for one suspect, but more may be involved. A parent told KTVU she witnessed five potential gunmen. ⁣ Police said they don’t have anyone in custody at the moment.

According to cell phone video from inside the school when officers arrived, a student can be heard telling them there were seven shots.

Bay Area Technology School posted an Instagram post stating that their campus security guard was injured in the shooting, but not seriously injured.

Jason Arbuckle, a carpenter at Oakland Unified, shared: ABC7 that a bullet grazed his head, leaving behind some fragments. He and a crew were putting up a trophy display when the shooting broke out, they report.

Other parents described a second victim who quickly came to the rescue after shots were fired.

“Our sincere condolences go out to the families and friends of the six people injured in a shooting that took place near our campus this afternoon,” they wrote.

They added that they praised their staff for “taking action” and applying their lockdown protocols as soon as they realized there was an active gunman on campus.

“We also want to thank all our students for the great way they handled the safety protocols. They are superstars! Please hug them tight for us.’

Rudsdale Newcomer High School says its students, all newly arrived immigrants fleeing violence and instability, work to support themselves and their families while also completing high school diplomas.

“Our students have suffered a lot of trauma because of their migration experiences,” the school says on its website.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that deputies assisted the Oakland Police Department at the complex yesterday afternoon.

But the children — believed to be as young as kindergarten and as old as 18 — were subsequently evacuated from their buildings.

Treva Reid, a councilor and candidate for mayor of Oakland, said investigators told her the shooting may be linked to increasing “group and gang violence.”

Reid went on to say that the shooting is evidence that the city has not invested enough in programs and initiatives to help children succeed.

“We’ve divested in them, so kids are taking matters into their own hands,” Reid said.

“They do things in ways that aren’t healthy to resolve conflict and that’s what we see today.”

Community activist Nina Carter says that despite all the rhetoric surrounding school funding, the situation won’t change if Oakland students can’t relate to those in charge.

‘You have to have these children in these schools and on these campuses that can identify themselves. You can’t just have someone dealing with this kind of trauma that these kids face. That’s where you have to come from,” Carter explains.

Carter is part of a Violence Interrupters team that mediates conflict between groups and gangs.

The shootings come a day after Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong announced new measures to tackle gun violence.

A woman told local news CBS Bay Area that she heard the shots from the buildings just after noon.

Other shocked parents described their panic after learning their children’s schools had been closed. One mother, after hearing the gunshots, said, “I was thinking of the worst.”

The Oakland Unified School District said in a statement: “There was an incident today at the King Estate campus on Fontaine Street, which is home to Rudsdale Continuation and Newcomer high schools, BayTech Charter School and the headquarters of Sojourner Truth Independent Study. , which has no students on the site.

“The campus is near Oakland Academy of Knowledge (OAK), but it’s important to note that the incident was NOT at OAK and had nothing to do with that elementary school either.

“We currently have no information other than what the Oakland Police Department is reporting.”

John Sasaki, an Oakland Unified School District spokesperson, said in a statement that counselors were being made available to students.

Television footage showed dozens of police cars and yellow tape on the street outside the school and students leaving nearby campuses.

James Jackson, chief executive of Alameda Health System, also noted an increase in violence.

“We have almost doubled the number of violent crime victims we see here at our facility (Highland Hospital). So something has changed,” Jackson said.

City Councilor Loren Taylor, who was outside the school, declined to confirm details about the incident, telling KTVU-TV, “There were guns on our school campuses where our babies would be protected.”