Oakland’s 100th homicide of 2022 on Monday was the fatal shooting of a city violence prevention coordinator’s uncle. But then some 12 hours later, the city saw its 101st killing of the year.
It was a heartbreaking twist of fate Monday afternoon, when the city of Oakland recorded its 100th homicide of the year (the third consecutive year Oakland has seen 100 or more killings), that the victim’s nephew was an Oakland violence prevention coordinator. After 60-year-old Louis Truehill was shot and killed after 3 p.m. Monday at 12th Street and Kirkham Street in West Oakland, his nephew Kentrell Killens, an Oakland Department of Violence Prevention coordinator, received a work call to respond to a crime scene where his own blood relatives were mourning.
"I'm trying to muster up the strength to comfort his children who are finding out today that their father has been murdered," Killens told KTVU. "So it's very difficult to try and hold it together and yet you're hurting yourself."
This is hard. #Oakland had its 100th homicide victim of 2022,another shooting. I spoke with his family who gave me this photo of Louis Truehill, 60, a father &grandfather, who was battling cancer. Oakland's police chief knows his son. So much pain in Oakland. #stop #gunviolence pic.twitter.com/OXw7z7bX7A
— Jana Katsuyama (@JanaKTVU) October 4, 2022
That awful 100th homicide milestone comes amidst a recent, ongoing surge of gun violence in Oakland, as in just the last week, we saw six people shot at an Oakland high school, and two Berkeley High students fatally shot at a house party. (Oh, and there may be a serial killer on the loose.) Oakland’s murder marker tragically did not stay at 100 for long, as early Tuesday morning, a separate KTVU report details that a man was found shot and dead on the street in the Glenview neighborhood for the city’s 101st homicide of 2022.
Police were already in the area responding to the reported theft of a catalytic converter. Police cannot yet say whether the theft and the shooting are related.
Oakland police on Tuesday morning began investigating the city's 101st homicide in the Glenview neighborhood as they were responding to a report of a stolen catalytic converter. https://t.co/dgF4vdxvzs
— KTVU (@KTVU) October 4, 2022
But we certainly have a troubling pattern here, which is why state Attorney General Rob Bonta is visiting Oakland today, and according to NBC Bay Area, will “lay out a new plan in hopes to help stop gun violence in Oakland.” That station reports that Bonta is “expected to join district attorneys from Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties in the push to stem gun violence.”
That press conference was part of larger event to address gun violence that is being attended by multiple district attorneys from the East Bay, and it's continuing into Tuesday afternoon.
In other Oakland homicide news, we now have some surveillance video from last Wednesday’s Rudsdale Newcomer High School shooting, which left six people shot, two of them students. The two gunmen, both still unidentified, can be seen in the video.
If you have information about any of these shootings, you’re asked to contact the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821 or the TIP LINE at (510) 238-7950.
Related: Three Homicides Mark Grisly Monday Night In Oakland [SFist]
Screenshot: Oakland Police Department via Facebook
