Police in the small Contra Costa County town of Oakley say they are working around the clock to catch the young man who opened fire at a high school house party over the weekend.
The gunshots rang out Saturday night, sending teenagers scrambling and leaving a 16-year-old boy dead, and three other teens wounded.
“I have a 17-year-old female who has released from the hospital she had gunshot wounds I have a 16-year-old male who is still hospitalized with gunshot wound, and I have a 15-year-old male who is still hospitalized with gunshot wounds,” said Oakley Police Department Chief Paul Beard.
“It was probably 100 to 150 kids out here running around. It kind of sounded like a horror movie. It was terrible. It was just terror,” said neighbor Joshua Laine.
Police and school officials confirm the 16-year-old boy killed was a student at Liberty High School in Brentwood. Students and parents tell NBC Bay Area he was a well known basketball player.
“I think this is absolutely tragic,” said Beard. “No child goes to a party thinking they’re not going to make it out of that party and no parent says goodbye to their child on a Saturday night believing they’re not going to see their child again on Sunday morning, so this is just very heartbreaking.”
Local
And now there’s fears among many of retaliation, police stepped up their visibility at Oakley’s Freedom High after a rumor spread about a retaliatory shooting.
“I just heard there’s gonna be a shooting, it was gonna happen at lunch,” said Elizabeth Loera, a student at Freedom High.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. >Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
Police say they have no evidence of a credible threat but some parents are feeling panicked.
“I am very worried I’m not feeling safe. I'm not feeling like my kids are safe, so I came to pick up both kids, my daughter and my son,” said parent Alejandra Guzman.
A community meeting will take place at Oakley’s Freedom High Monday where both the superintendent and the police chief will answer questions. The chief says there’s no bigger priority than finding the shooter.
“It’s disgusting and it angers me and makes me very sad. This is one of the largest cases that we have ever handled,” said Beard.
