Police chief IDs 15-year-old shooting victim

Armstrong: `Police can only do so much. At some point, accountability has to happen'

OAKLAND >> At a news conference Tuesday, police named the 15-year-old girl fatally shot during a spate of fatal shootings late last week, and Oakland's police chief continued to press for community help in addressing the issue.

The victim in that shooting, shortly before 7:15 p.m. Saturday, was identified as Antioch resident Camyla Brown. She was shot while visiting an East Oakland home and died Sunday morning at an Oakland hospital. There have been no arrests.

“Every homicide is unfortunate, but the pain deepends when we lose children,” Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said in a video statement Monday night. “Our hearts go out to her family and the entire community.”

Armstrong also praised a Joe Biden administration announcement that businesses' manufacture of nonserial-numbered ghost guns and licensed dealer sales of such firearms without background checks would become illegal, and said that police in Oakland recovered nearly 300 such firearms last year.

On Tuesday, Armstrong offered condolences to Brown's family before calling on witnesses to come forward.

“If the community has any information that they could share with us, we really would appreciate it. We know that there were a lot of people there that witnessed this event,” Armstrong said. “That information is important for us to have so that we can bring someone to justice who was responsible for this.”

Armstrong showed footage from surveillance cameras of ghost-gun-involved shootings Friday at Hillside and Ritchie streets and Sunday in the 6600 block of Eastlawn Street. He then turned his focus toward what he described as gun violence's disproportionate impact on Oakland, discussing homicide numbers for multiple Alameda County police departments in 2021.

“The city of Hayward had the highest number of homicides next to Oakland. There were six. 132 homicides in Oakland, plus an additional seven that happened on our Oakland highways,” Armstrong said.

“Oakland far surpasses any city in Alameda County with the level of violence and death happening in this community. We cannot have to do this alone. Police can only do so much. At some point, accountability has to happen.”

Describing the justice system as “unbalanced,” Armstrong said he was in favor of probationers and parolees getting access to services, but not if zerobail scheduling meant to limit crowding during the COVID-19 pandemic meant “they are out faster than we can get our people out there to talk to them. It undermines our entire strategy here in Oakland.”

Referring to the city's Ceasefire violence prevention strategy, Armstrong said “we cannot overemphasize that those involved in violent crime in our city pay attention when they are caught with firearms, and they don't stay in custody. They begin to feel like there (are) no rules, that nobody's holding them accountable, then there's no reason to stop. We have seen repeat offenders over and over again.

“That's a message that three or four years ago was not the message. Three or four years ago, the message was that if you committed a violent crime and our Ceasefire teams identified you and we brought you before a judge, that you were held accountable. We need to get back to that.”

Ceasefire Director Rev. Damita Davis-Howard, who joined Armstrong at the news conference, called out judges' impact on the county's justice system.

“The difference is in Alameda County's judicial system … they're still doing the old way of bail, when other counties are back to pre-COVID,” Davis-Howard said. “When they don't do what is necessary, the city with the largest harm, our communities are the ones that are being most affected by the judges' decision here. … So you have to think of it the other way. We may have a high rate of crime, but when the judicial system doesn't work, then our city is more impacted than other cities here.”