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Car chase ends in crash, police shooting, arrests

on December 20, 2010

On Monday afternoon, Oakland police shot and killed a man following a chase involving a car that was wanted in connection with a previous Oakland shooting.

According to a press release issued Monday evening by the Oakland Police Department, at about 2:15 p.m. undercover police officers were informed that a vehicle believed to have been used during a December 17 shooting had been seen near Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Sycamore Street in West Oakland. Four men were in the vehicle, which was headed towards the freeway.

Officers in marked police cars joined the undercover officers, and the driver led the police on a three-mile chase on eastbound 580 through East Oakland. The chase ended when the vehicle careened into a house near East 33rd Street and 13th Avenue.

According to the OPD, after all four men fled the car on foot, two officers followed one of the men and fatally shot him. The OPD has not yet released a statement regarding why the officers opened fire, but according to the police press release, a handgun was found near the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene. An assault rifle was also found the abandoned car, according to police.

According to media reports, two of the other three men were apprehended. KTVU Channel 2 has some footage from the crash site immediately after the incident.

The two officers have been placed on paid leave and the police department’s Homicide and Internal Affairs divisions, as well the District Attorney’s Office, are investigating the incident. The OPD’s press release states that more information about the events leading to the shooting will be released after witness and officer interviews are completed.

The Oakland Police Department recently hosted sessions for the public and for the media about when officers are authorized to use force, a particularly sensitive issue in Oakland since the November 8 officer-involved shooting of Oakland resident Derrick Jones.

Oakland North will continue to follow this story. December 21 update here.

13 Comments

  1. TheSkylineHighSenior on December 20, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    I can’t wait for the demonstrations to come and demonize the police department for ruining these outstanding young citizens from reaching their dreams of being rap artists! [/sarcasm]

    I wonder how many comments there will be that will create a race issue or blame the government for not being good parents to these individuals!



  2. scathingharpy on December 21, 2010 at 5:57 am

    Waitaminite. I used to live on MLK and 23rd st. MLK runs into berkeley, at childrens hospital. Now I live 12 miles away on 83rd ave, and Im in DEEP east Oakland. Seems all the crime is blamed on “east oakland”. Exactly where does EAST oakland start and end? Whereever the crime seems to be happening? Like,everything outside of downtoan, lake merritt and oh yah, montclair is ghetto? Montclair is the only TRUE East oakland, far as I can tell.



  3. themacinator on December 21, 2010 at 8:04 am

    mlk and sycamore are west oakland.

    and i know that everyone calls 13th ave x e33rd east oakland,(including other people covering this story) but it’s not. it’s just below macarthur blvd from park blvd, which i don’t think most people would call east oakland. i live off 35th ave, and i hardly call that west oakland, it’s fruitvale-ish.

    i know these are little things, but oaklandnorth is somewhere i come for oakland-based reporting, and i like a little more accuracy. crime isn’t just a “bad neighborhood” thing.



  4. tj on December 21, 2010 at 10:01 am

    The woman in the story is so indignant, “They are killing our young black men in the street.” “They” presumably the police. Give me a freaking break.

    Lady: if you pull a gun on a police officer, your ass is gonna get shot! Period. “THEY” aren’t killing the young black men on the streets — the young black men ARE KILLING EACH OTHER!

    Your indignation is laughable in the extreme. Are you so blind that you have to blame the police for everything. Reality check: Your little johnny ain’t no saint.

    The young men run from the police, causing a chase, then they pull a gun on police officers. There was an assault rifle found in the car too. I don’t care what color you are, you gonna get shot if you pull a gun on the police!

    Yeah, you going to tell me these are upstanding and completely innocent people getting shot here, lady? They just up here killing ’em for no reason, huh? Okay, yeah, you go on now and believe your little fantasy and hide behind the cry of racism and in the mean time the young black men you speak of will go on raping, shooting and drugging and killing each other.

    They are not innocent victims, they aren’t ‘good people’ – they are BAD GUYS doing BAD THINGS and they brought this on themselves. THAT is the reality here, if you like it or not.

    //end rant



    • oakland-is-my-home-too on December 21, 2010 at 11:50 am

      Amen. Seriously, these guys had just been spotted in a drive by shooting, and the lady in the video link is moaning about how others people are to blame, its the medias fault, etc etc. WTF? Let’s set the record straight. The original crime was a drive by shooting, then a car chase, followed by a shootout with the police. Reaction: blame the Po-po. Thugs running around shooting assault weapons from cars are responsible for the violence in our neighborhoods, not the police!!! What about the innocents who get caught in the crossfire of gang crime? People get sidetracked about concerns about the rights of gang members to hang out together, meanwhile, thugs find it appropriate to shoot at cops when they can’t outrun them. When the police kill these fools, and the “the community” cries police brutality, it just doesn’t make any sense, where is the real accountability? Who was involved in the drive by, who smashed a car into someones house, and who shot at police in a populated area?



    • prncesslina on December 21, 2010 at 9:02 pm

      man , forreal tho . . why the fucken police shot at the nggaa for ? did he try to shoot first ? think not . . cause i live right there & saw the whole thinggg .



  5. Becky on December 21, 2010 at 11:46 am

    I agree with the others that the area near Highland Hospital is hardly East Oakland. My mental map puts East Oakland as everything east of Fruitvale.

    And despite the woman quoted in the article, I don’t sense a ton of outrage over this. Maybe because the suspects were clearly armed, maybe because of general weariness, I don’t know.



  6. nelson on December 21, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    When will society stop harassing young black men?



    • oakland-is-my-home-too on December 21, 2010 at 5:34 pm

      Are you serious? The recent article notes how these guys were part of the “P-Team” gang, headed to shoot their fellow young black men in the “ACORN” gang.

      Oh wait, they were just innocent outstanding young men, and the fully loaded SKS was just a big paperweight, that they use to do their homework, except when ‘system’ is keeping them down.



    • ANONYMOUS on December 23, 2010 at 7:06 am

      When they stop shooting each other, running from police, and brandishing weapons at the said police?

      Stupid hurts.



    • Benjamin Home on December 26, 2010 at 3:30 pm

      shudddd up until you have something constructive to say!



  7. […] Oakland Police Department has identified the man shot and killed by two officers Monday afternoon in East Oakland after a car chase as 19-year-old Oakland resident Obataiye Edwards. At a […]



  8. Big Pimping on March 13, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    That lady is full of shit …. and the police is full of shit but if you put yo self in a situation then you have to deal wit the out come of it.. The streets are just sick….. and that’s how life is now, some people are not trying to just sit in “JAIL” so they feel like fuck it if the police get on me it’s got to go “DOWN” but the police do just be fucking wit wit people for no reason . and people do put they self in fucked up situations to so …..hey



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