OAKLAND — In latest days, law enforcement officials within the East Bay have been offered with a novel and harmful problem: individuals making an attempt to kill them.
Over the previous 16 days, patrol cops in Oakland and San Leandro have been shot at 4 occasions, leading to one officer being wounded and others narrowly avoiding harm. In San Leandro, a person allegedly fired at three law enforcement officials who returned fireplace, then later claimed he was doing so as a result of he wished the cops to shoot him, in response to courtroom information.
In three of the 4 incidents, the officers returned fireplace, bringing the full variety of East Bay police shootings this month to 5. That’s as a result of in Contra Costa, officers in Richmond and Harmony killed individuals in separate incidents — a Harmony man shot by police whereas allegedly stabbing a member of the family, and a Richmond man who allegedly charged at police whereas holding a sheath that the officers reportedly believed was a knife, authorities mentioned.
The Contra Costa incidents imply that 2025 has seen extra deadly police shootings within the county than there have been in all of 2024. Actually, 2024 noticed two deadly incidents involving officers — the suicide of a person arrested on suspicion of a kid intercourse crime, and a police chase involving a teen who veered off a freeway onramp and crashed after police discontinued the pursuit.
In Alameda County, the string of tried police killings began Feb. 10, when a person recognized as Robert Blackwell allegedly shot up Oakland police Officer Khatanbaatar Batzorig’s patrol automobile, as Batzorig was responding to a different name. The patrol automobile, however not Batzorig, was struck by gunfire.
When police recognized Blackwell later that day, they realized that in 2015 he’d been charged in a near-identical incident and served a jail sentence for it. In that case, Blackwell and one other individual, allegedly pointed weapons at an Oakland police officer who was working undercover, then shot at a patrol cop who confirmed as much as help the undercover officer.
Subsequent, on Feb. 16, a bunch of law enforcement officials in San Leandro confirmed as much as a Walmart there for a report of a person trying to ram his youngsters and their mom with a automobile throughout a custody alternate.
What they discovered was an “irate” Reynaldo Melendez-Espinoz — a person with a previous home violence case involving a baby’s mom — who allegedly pulled a gun and fired at officers Blake Staniford, Quinton Might and Austin Lovel. Officers returned fireplace, however nobody — not Melendez-Espinoz, nor any police — had been wounded. He later informed authorities he hoped they might shoot him, in response to courtroom information.
Lastly, this week police in Oakland exchanged gunfire with two individuals in two incidents inside a 24-hour span. The primary got here simply after midnight on Feb. 24, when an Oakland Housing Authority officer and a still-unidentified suspect had been shot throughout a gun battle on eighty fifth Avenue. Each the suspect and the officer had been hospitalized in steady situation, authorities mentioned.
Lastly, at round 4 p.m. on Feb. 24, two Oakland Police Division cops whose names haven’t but been launched allegedly exchanged gunfire with 29-year-old Francisco Perez. He was booked into jail on tried homicide and assault prices however as of Wednesday morning he had not been charged.
Initially Revealed: February 26, 2025 at 12:32 PM PST
