A shooting injured three people at Skyline High School on Thursday night, following what was otherwise a celebratory graduation ceremony.
Just before 7:45, as people were leaving the ceremony, two groups got into a fight in the school’s parking lot, according to the Oakland Police Department. The fight escalated and multiple people were shot. Two victims were found at the scene and a third at a nearby hospital, OPD said. Police apprehended multiple people and arrested one.
Each of the victims is expected to survive, OPD said. Police are still looking for additional shooters and witnesses.
Most of the graduation ceremony went smoothly. Students dressed in red and white robes as they sat on the 50-yard-line of the football field. Student speakers commemorated the past four years, how their high school experience began completely virtually during the beginning of the pandemic, and all that they’ve accomplished.
“We’ve had our educational journey defined by a once-in-a-generation event,” said Jessica Vogel, Skyline’s senior class president during her speech to fellow classmates. “Our teachers and students have stood together weathering strikes, violence, and uncertainty. We’ve witnessed massive global conflict and felt the pain of those suffering across seas. None of this has been exactly the traditional high school experience.”
“But we are not traditional learners. We have been forged to be resilient, empathetic and versatile,” Zara Ahsan, Skyline’s student body president, told the graduating class. “But we have done so much more than adapt. We’ve thrived.”
In a Friday afternoon statement, OUSD Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said the shooting happened after the graduation ceremony ended.
“What happened after Skyline High School’s graduation on Thursday evening was heartbreaking and absolutely unacceptable,” she wrote. “I want to appreciate the staff from Skyline and the district who were on site at the time and immediately responded to take control of this challenging situation until police could arrive,” she said.
Johnson-Trammell added that behavioral health staff would be at Skyline on Friday to support students, staff, and families, and that the rest of OUSD’s high school graduations would have increased security.
Madison Park Academy, a 6-12th grade school in East Oakland, advised community members that its graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon will have additional security and police presence. In an Instagram post, school leaders stated that no bags would be allowed at the ceremony, school staff would have metal detectors, and attendees must leave the site as soon as the ceremony is over.
This isn’t the first shooting at Skyline this school year. Last September, three minors were charged in connection with a Sept. 5 shooting at the school. In September 2022, a shooting at Rudsdale High School killed David Sakurai, an OUSD carpenter, and injured five others.
Thursday’s shooting comes as OUSD is strengthening security measures across its campuses, including implementing surveillance cameras, visitor buzz-in systems, and fencing. The district has been re-evaluating how to approach safety on campuses following the disbanding of the school police department in 2020.
In a presentation to the city council and school board earlier this month, the Department of Violence Prevention gave a report on its violence interruption teams assigned to seven OUSD schools, not including Skyline. Across OUSD, high schools saw a 10% reduction in suspensions for violence between 2022 and 2023, but still saw more than 600 violence-related suspensions during the 2022-2023 school year.
During the meeting, school board directors urged that violence intervention teams be placed at Skyline and Oakland Tech, OUSD’s biggest high schools. The full report on the impact of the violence prevention teams is expected later this summer.
It’s not clear what prompted Thursday’s shooting, Johnson-Trammell said.
“But we know this: Our schools are among the safest places to be in the city, and there is never any place for violence within or around them,” she said. “As a community, we must not tolerate violence, and instead work together to eliminate it in Oakland. I know that many of us share this collective frustration and devastation, and that our hearts are with the victims of this incident, their loved ones, and every graduate and their extended community who attended the ceremony to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime achievement.”
