Mallory Moench

July 5, 2021

Oakland police responded to seven shootings, two deaths and a huge sideshow overnight on the Fourth of July in “12 hours of nonstop chaos,” Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong said Monday.

The seven shootings took place from 6:30 p.m. Sunday until 10 a.m. Monday. Six were in East Oakland and one in North Oakland. One victim was a 16-year-old boy.

One shooting led to the city’s 67th homicide this year after a 48-year-old man died on the street just after midnight. Another man died of blunt trauma to the head, the cause of which is under investigation. A female victim was in grave condition Monday and not expected to survive.

The level of life-threatening violence was so high that the ambulance system was inundated and “took a considerable amount of time to respond,” the police chief said.

“The last 24 hours have been very challenging in the city of Oakland,” Armstrong said during a news conference at police headquarters Monday. “It was 12 hours of nonstop chaos.”

Armstrong said a vast majority of the injuries were caused by celebratory gunfire, such as bullets shot into the air that rain back down, in “one of the more violent Fourth of Julys” he had ever seen.

“This year the level of celebratory gunfire was something like we haven’t seen before and the number of people who have been hit is unbelievable,” he said.

Simultaneously, police monitored a sideshow of more than 300 cars and 200 spectators roaming across the city. Some participants were armed with guns and pointing lasers or throwing objects at officers, the chief said. One spectator was hit by a car and sustained injuries that may require “lifelong medical treatment,” he added.

Police arrested three people, seized five guns and towed six cars in response to the sideshow.

The police force had been prepared to crack down on illegal fireworks on the holiday, but because of the high level of violence and the “low number of resources and officers running from one shooting scene to another,” they were unable to respond to fireworks activity, Armstrong said.

The violence piled on top of a busy weekend for Oakland firefighters, who responded to 61 fire-related calls Sunday and three structure fires early Monday morning. Deputy Chief Nick Luby told The Chronicle that “there is a high probability” two of the three fires were caused by fireworks.

Armstrong held his news conference a week after slamming the Oakland City Council for voting to shift about $18 million from the police budget to violence intervention and prevention as well as social services. The mayor and two council members who represent East Oakland, where most of the shootings this weekend occurred, opposed the move.

Armstrong used July Fourth as an example of how strapped for resources the department is. Oakland currently has 714 sworn police officers — roughly 165 sworn officers per 100,000 people — while San Francisco has roughly 202 sworn officers per 100,000 people.

The decision to redirect police funds divided a city wracked by violence. Supporters said the purpose was to address the causes of those crimes, such as unemployment and gang violence.

Advocates pointed out that the presence of officers, for instance at a Juneteenth celebration at Lake Merritt where a shooting killed one person and wounded seven, doesn’t always prevent crimes. Others described police as violence responders, but not preventers, who instead depend on the community for that role. The new budget invests in the city’s Department of Violence Intervention, which partners with community organizations to interrupt and deter violence on the streets.

Armstrong, an Oakland native, said Monday he would hold a rally to call on the community to end violence.

“We have to get people to put down guns,” Armstrong said. “We are losing people at an alarming rate, and we have to recognize how much trauma and hurt and pain it causes in our community.”

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@mallorymoench