Crime: Firefighter ducks stray bullets in East Oakland shooting spree
Firefighters had just returned to their station in East Oakland from a call Tuesday night when they heard dozens of gunshots. A lieutenant remarked to a cadet that when they hear gunfire like that, it usually means they’ll be responding to an incident soon.
But seconds later, a bullet pierced a back window of Station 18 at 50th and Bancroft avenues, whizzed down the length of a hook-and-ladder truck — right where two firefighters had been standing — and exited through a front window before lodging in an apartment building across the street.
A firefighter ducked behind a front wheel of a fire engine. Two threw themselves under a desk in a nearby office, while a firefighter upstairs “could hear the bullet zinging, and that’s when she ducked,” said Battalion Chief Emon Usher.
No one on the crew was hurt, but less than a half mile away, a man attending a vigil for an Oakland homicide victim was himself shot dead.
No arrest has been made.
The shooting happened on the 5000 block of Melrose Avenue shortly before 9 p.m. as mourners gathered at a vigil to remember Ceejay Reed, 19, who was killed in a drive-by shooting on 53rd Street in North Oakland on April 26.
ShotSpotter, the city’s gunfire-detection system, recorded at least 22 shots during the Tuesday night incident.
A 19-year-old Antioch man was struck by gunfire. Someone took him to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he died. His name has not been released.
When the firefighters first heard small-caliber gunfire, they weren’t overly concerned, because shootings are all but an everyday occurrence in the neighborhood. But they decided to move away from the back door just in case.
Then gunfire from a large-caliber weapon broke out, and the firefighters heard glass shatter.
When one bullet, which traveled south from Melrose and across busy Foothill Boulevard, shattered the back garage window, the firefighters knew they were in danger of becoming victims themselves.
The firefighters were lucky, Usher said. Anyone standing near the truck at the time would have been hit “right in the middle of the forehead,” Usher said.
Dan Robertson, president of the Oakland firefighters union, said station houses are usually considered havens for firefighters, who don’t wear bulletproof vests when they respond to emergencies.
Other firehouses have been hit by gunfire, including Station 23 on the 7100 block of Foothill Boulevard in East Oakland. The department is considering adding a safety wall there after bullets penetrated the kitchen.
“We don’t judge. We help everybody,” Robertson said. “It’s really unfortunate, and it speaks to the conversation that needs to be had about how important it is to get a handle on the crime issue.”