Oakland school shooting: Campus closed, police still searching for shooter

OAKLAND — A campus that houses multiple schools in East Oakland remained closed Thursday morning after an afternoon shooting wounded six adults on Wednesday.

The schools in the 8200 block of Fontaine Street all are housed in an Oakland Unified School District building. The gunfire happened about 1 p.m. in a portion of the school complex known as the Rudsdale.

At least one person fired a weapon, Oakland Police Assistant Chief Darren Allison said in a Wednesday news conference. Authorities did not release information about a suspect or suspects in the shooting, and no arrests were announced.

As of Thursday morning, two of the people wounded were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, according to a spokesperson for Highland Hospital in Oakland. Another person was treated and discharged. Three other people were expected to recover from their injuries.

On Thursday morning, some officials with Oakland Unified School District and the BayTech Technology School milled about the campus, which sat eerily quiet on what would normally be a bustling school day. It stood in stark contrast to the chaos that erupted a day earlier somewhere near the entrance of the education campus in the Eastmont Hills neighborhood.

Ryan Hughes, director of facilities for the BayTech charter school, recalled standing in the cafeteria Wednesday afternoon when he heard several shots toward the entrance of the building. He rushed to the main entrance, which all of the schools on campus share, to lock the doors.

In the foyer, Hughes said, he encountered a bloody scene with at least four shooting victims. He recalled seeing one high school student bleeding on the ground after having been shot multiple times in the back. A building and grounds staff member also had been shot in the stomach, he said.

Another building and grounds member suffered a graze wound to the head, Hughes said. And a security guard of the charter school was shot in the leg, near his knee.

On Thursday, Hughes struggled to make sense of the violence — especially knowing that it came almost exactly a month after another school shooting about three miles down the hill in deep East Oakland, which left a 13-year-old student of Madison Park Academy hospitalized.

“I’m lost for words,” Hughes said.

Police and hospital officials had no update on any of the victims’ conditions early Thursday. They have not said how many of the victims were school staff or adult students, though all of them were affiliated with the school campus.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.