A San Francisco man who was training to become an Alameda County Sheriff's deputy was shot and killed Tuesday while driving a vehicle on the approach to the Bay Bridge toll plaza.
The shooting happened around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday on the westbound I-580 connector ramp to I-80 in Oakland. CHP officers responded to reports of a crashed vehicle in the area, and as the Chronicle reports, they found one man in the car suffering from a gunshot wound. At 5:00 p.m., CHP announced a closure of the connector while the shooting was investigated.
The victim appeared to have swerved left and hit a guardrail after being shot.
As KTVU reported, via the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, the victim was a 28-year-old man who was in his final month of police academy training to join the sheriff's department. He was reportedly driving home to San Francisco when the shooting occurred, leaving the department's training facility in Dublin. His name has not yet been released.
It remains unclear if the victim was the target of the shooting, or the victim of crossfire.
The sheriff's department posted a video to Twitter just after 9:40 p.m. Tuesday showing deputies in a procession with the young recruit's body on a flag-draped gurney outside Highland Hospital in Oakland.
"Our Deputies have just loaded the body of our young police academy recruit for a law enforcement procession from Highland Hospital to our Coroner’s Bureau," the tweet said. "We are heartbroken and disturbed by this senseless act of gun violence."
Our Deputies have just loaded the body of our young police academy recruit for a law enforcement procession from Highland Hospital to our Coroner’s Bureau. We are heartbroken and disturbed by this senseless act of gun violence. pic.twitter.com/jM96EXIriQ
— Alameda County Sheriff (@ACSOSheriffs) January 5, 2022
Little information has been made available about the shooting, which remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the CHP investigation tip line at 707-917-4491.
A stray bullet in a shooting on I-880 in Oakland resulted in the death of a two-year-old boy in early November. Weeks later, a young woman was fatally shot while approaching the Bay Bridge toll plaza, while her two young sons were in the backseat of the vehicle. No arrests have been made in either shooting.
CHP said that over 80 freeway shootings had taken place on Alameda County freeways in 2021.
