Daylight shooting in Oakland leaves two dead, one injured

Two men were shot to death and another was wounded Wednesday afternoon in East Oakland in the latest incident of the city’s escalating rate of violent crimes and homicide.

Officers responded to the triple shooting in the 1900 block of 84th Avenue at 12:47 p.m., said Deputy Chief Leronne Armstrong of the Oakland Police Department.

One man was pronounced dead at the scene. Two others were taken to a hospital, where one of them died.

The third victim was alive as of 4 p.m., but no other status was given on his condition. The men’s names and ages have not been released.

The identity of the shooter or shooters and a possible motive were also not immediately known.

“It’s early in the investigation for us to determine what happened today,” Armstrong said. “What we know happened today was there was a group of individuals out in our community and some confrontation happened, and that led to gunfire.”

Armstrong said this was the second shooting within a three-block radius within the last 18 hours. The previous night, according to Oakland police, 60 rounds were fired into a residential area.

For the week of Oct. 5 to Oct. 11, Oakland police recorded 51 instances of gunfire. For the year, assaults with firearms were up 48%, and officers have recovered more than 750 firearms, which marks a 31% increase from this point last year.

“But it’s more than just a firearm,” Armstrong said. “It’s the individuals that are willing to pick up the firearms and use them in our community. They have to put the guns down. I hear the voices of those that are in our community and [they] don’t feel safe.”

Wednesday’s killings are Nos. 77 and 78 in a city of roughly 430,000 people. In comparison, Los Angeles, which has about 4 million inhabitants, registered 260 homicides as of Wednesday.

“These aren’t just numbers,” Armstrong said. “These are people. These are people from our community that have lost their lives to senseless violence.”

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.