SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Oakland leaders are furious after a mass shooting injured six adults at the King Estate campus on Wednesday afternoon as they vowed to increase funding for violence prevention programs.
The reaction to the shooting was swift from Alameda County Health System CEO James Jackson.
"This is not the Oakland that I grew up in," he said at a press conference on Wednesday outside Highland Hospital, where all six victims were taken for treatment. "I'm calling on community leaders, and I’m prepared to lean in myself, to do differently. We’ve got to do something better."
"What I'm asking for is for us to come together as leaders in this community to try to stem the tide of violence."
Oakland created the Department of Violence Prevention in 2017 in an effort to reduce crime throughout the city.
"The Department of Violence Prevention I believe that it is working, but it’s not working as well as we need it to, to really deter everything that’s going on,” Oakland Councilmember Loren Taylor told KCBS Radio after the shooting. "I'm furious that we keep having gun violence erupt across our city and now it's entering our sacred spaces.”
Fellow councilmember Treva Reid, who represents the district where the school shooting occurred, agreed that more funding for the program is needed in order for it to fulfill its mission.
"We made historic investments in violence prevention, intervention and healing and trauma care, and we’re still short of that goal and so doubling that funding more deeply and closely with those partners on the ground who have that street cred," Reid explained. "Whatever those funding needs are, we need to do more because we've not done enough and we're feeling the weight of it all over the city and especially in parts of our community like East Oakland."
Councilmember Noel Gallo called for more police reform and increased law enforcement presence at Oakland schools and on its streets.
"The symbol of our police force is one that's become everything that can go wrong in policing," he told KCBS Radio's Melissa Culross and Eric Thomas on Thursday morning.
"I need the cooperation that's missing from the sheriff's department, the highway patrol, the BART police and Oakland Police Department, working together," he continued. "I'm going to be demanding from Attorney General Rob Bonta and the governor, to allocate not only resources but additional help on the streets like we used to have."
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
Related
Related
