6 Injured in Shooting at Oakland, California School for Immigrants

Oakland Police Department Assistant Chief Darren Allison speaks to reporters after a shooting at the Kings Estate campus in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 28, 2022. Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Police are investigating a shooting on Wednesday that injured six adults at a campus that houses a school for recently arrived immigrants in Oakland, California.

Multiple people alerted Oakland Police Department (OPD) officers to gunshots at around 12:45 p.m. in the 8200 block of Fontaine Street near the King Estate school campus which contains four different schools ranging from middle to high school, police said.

Oakland Police Department Assistant Chief Darren Allison told reporters that officers from OPD, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, and California Highway Patrol immediately entered the school upon arrival.

“They began looking for any suspects, any victims, attending the victims, while at the same time escorting students and staff outside of harm’s way,” Allison said.

Allison said the incident took place “within proximity and in the threshold” of the Rudsdale Newcomer high school portion of the campus. The school’s website says its students are aged between 16 and 21 and are “recently arrived immigrants who have fled their home countries because of violence and instability.”

OPD officers are investigating what drove the suspect to carry out the shooting. Investigators will determine where exactly the incident began, with Allison unable to give details on if the shooter was inside a school building.

Adult Victims Affiliated With School

Allison could not confirm if the victims were staff or students but said they were all aged over 18 and had “some affiliation” with the school.

The victims were taken to area hospitals for treatment, police said. Two suffered life-threatening injuries and one had non-life-threatening injuries.

“At last check, one victim was released from the hospital, and two others were pending release,” OPD said in a statement.

Police are working with federal and state law enforcement to search for at least one or more shooters.

“We are currently and actively looking for one shooter although there may be other individuals involved,” Allison said.

He added that teams from OPD’s Ceasefire Division and Violent Crime Operations Center were searching for the suspect.

The shooting took place right before school was dismissed for the day, reportedly creating panic among waiting parents. Police set up an area for parents to reunite with students at a nearby church and provided the support services of a chaplain.

“Anytime there’s a shooting in our community it’s a complete tragedy,” Allison said. “But as a parent, I completely understand the fear, the emotion, the panic when shootings are occurring at our schools, with our young children, and it’s completely and wholly unacceptable.”

Oakland Mayor Libby Shaaf condemned the shooting and decried what she described as “unbridled access to firearms in this country.”

“Today’s gun violence at Sojourner Truth school shocks the soul—our schools are sanctuaries for our children,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Our investigators report all six victims are adults [and] being treated for injuries at hospitals now. The school is now clear [and] all children being reunited [with their] families.”