Oakland 3-year-old critical after shooting
A 3-year-old Oakland boy remained in critical condition Tuesday, a day after he was shot in the stomach inside a home in the Sobrante Park neighborhood, where residents expressed shock and grief.
The boy, who was not identified, was driven to a hospital in San Leandro after the shooting occurred about 7:20 p.m. Monday on the 10900 block of Robledo Drive, according to Oakland police.
“It’s just so tragic. I just can’t believe it,” said a man named Dwight, 67, who was in Sobrante Park Tuesday and like many others declined to give his last name. “Every time something tragic like this happens, it’s earthshattering, especially to a 3-year-old who doesn’t even know what life is all about yet.”
Dwight grew up across the street from the home where the shooting occurred, which neighbors said belongs to the boy’s great-grandparents.
“I love that family over there,” he said, pointing to a pink house with a plastic basketball hoop and bicycle in the front yard. He recalled that, when he was young, the boy’s great-grandfather was a blues guitarist and that the boy’s great-grandmother “looked over the neighborhood.” It’s unclear whether the boy or his parents live at the home. A woman who answered the door Tuesday declined to comment.
Oakland police Sgt. Michael Cardoza and Officer Jason Turner arrived to Sobrante Park mid-morning, knocked on doors and entered neighbors’ backyards, looking for evidence a shooter might have left behind.
Cardoza declined to comment on possible motives in the shooting. There were no immediate arrests.
“We are still actively pursuing some leads,” he said.
Another neighbor, Kirk Nicholasforeman, said the boy who was shot often played outside his greatgrandparents’ home.
“He knew my name,” said Nicholasforeman. “He would say, ‘What’s going on, mister?’ ”
Sobrante Park, located northeast of Interstate 880 near the San Leandro border, has undergone a transformation in recent decades, residents said.
In the 1960s, the streets were relatively quiet, children often played outside and parents on the block all helped each other out, Dwight said. But things changed in the late 1970s and 1980s, when the neighborhood was besieged by the crack cocaine trade.
In 2002, the city built a fence around Tyrone Carney Park, near the scene of the boy’s shooting, in hopes of decreasing homicides and thwarting drug dealers from a prolific local gang. On Tuesday, residents said the neighborhood had become more peaceful in the past decade.
But that peace was interrupted, and Maria Rodriguez, 32, was shaken. She said she won’t let her 5-yearold son play outside because she thinks the neighborhood is still too dangerous.
“When something bad happens to adults, it’s hard,” Rodriguez said, crying outside her home adorned with Halloween decorations. “But I think it’s worse when this happens to children.”