Shootings at Oakland schools spur surge in community participation at gun buyback event

By John Ramos

The city of Oakland is reeling after a 15-year-old student was shot at Skyline High School on Wednesday, and the next day a beloved former football coach was shot and killed at Laney College. On Saturday, at community events in West Oakland, residents spoke out about how the violence was impacting a city that, at times, has become desensitized to tragedy.

Shootings in Oakland had been on the decline lately. So, the news that Laney College football legend John Beam had died from a gunman’s attack on Thursday sent shockwaves through the community.

“It’s just gun violence everywhere. And it’s so senseless. Why?” said Marie Davis from Berkeley. “What was your reason? Why? I was just devastated, really.”

Davis was so sickened by the news that she turned in a small Derringer pistol at a gun buyback at Oakland’s Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. 

The event offered gift cards and a free gardening tool, fashioned from guns turned in at earlier buybacks.  

But one of the first weapons surrendered was an actual AK-47 military assault rifle.

“To get that particular gun off the streets, out of society, is already a success,” said Mt Zion Senior Pastor Michael Wallace.  “So, if we don’t collect another weapon today, we have been successful with that particular firearm being in the city.”

But they did collect a lot more. The buyback had been planned for a long time, but Sr. Rev. Wallace said the shootings at Laney College and at Skyline High School the day before had energized the community.

“Right now, the city has gone through a lot,” he said.  “And, I think as a result, the timing of this is excellent because it’s heightened the awareness that we need to rid the community and get guns out of the wrong hands.”

But not far away, hands were working with different tools. A large cleanup effort was underway in the neighborhood around McClymonds High School, as volunteers cleaned the streets with rakes and brooms.  

Organizers said that, in Oakland, community beautification efforts are also considered violence prevention, and Pastor Raymond Lankford, CEO of the Oakland Private Industry Council, said the shootings had an impact.

“This is a catalyst for change,” he said about the recent violence. “Because what this does is bring people together to make a difference, to get involved in their neighborhood, to talk to people. To reach people who are troubled. We have a lot of people who are troubled.”

That used to describe Dremond Wilks. At 15 years old, he is the same age as the victim in the Skyline High shooting. He spoke in a matter-of-fact way about why kids may be trying to kill other kids.

“A lot of people in Oakland don’t like each other.  They don’t get along.  Because people like to resort to violence. That’s all it is, is violence,” said Dremond. 

He said violence makes some people feel powerful, and he wasn’t surprised that they settle disputes with a gun.  

“I mean, not really,” he said, “because we’re Oakland, California. I mean, that’s what happens.”

But Dremond got help from an unexpected source. Zirl Wilson spotted him running from a retail robbery and took the kid under his wing.  

“We’re trying to save the ones that are 14 to 17,” he said, “the ones who are most vulnerable out there.”

Wilson gave up his own life of crime and now helps turn kids around with his non-profit called “Lulu’s House.”  And he said he thought one key to help turn things around is for the city to stop fearing its young people.

“I grew up here. Oakland’s a beautiful place, but what we have to do is step out as a community and we have to not be as scared of our kids,” Wilson said. “We have to be the ones to be the vanguards that bring them to the light. Even though Coach Beam passed away, even in his death, he brought something to light.”

If you go only by the data, Oakland is the safest it’s been in years. But after the week that was, a lot of people are feeling that it may be a false sense of security.