1 dead in East Bay overnight freeway shooting
OAKLAND -- One person was dead after a freeway shooting on Interstate Highway 580 in Oakland late Wednesday night, the second deadly shooting on an East Bay freeway in less than a week.
The California Highway Patrol said officers responded to reports of a crash around midnight and discovered a vehicle that had exited the westbound freeway and ended up in the 500 block of Lake Park Ave.
A bullet-riddled pickup truck had crashed into a pole. The shooting victim was inside and declared dead at the scene. No word yet on if the person died of a shooting wound or from injuries suffered in a crash.
The victim's identity was withheld until the family was notified.
The highway was closed for about three hours for the investigation into the shooting before reopening early Thursday.
On Saturday, 5-year-old Eliyanah Crisostomo was struck by a bullet as she rode in her family's car along I-880 on the way to a family birthday celebration in Fremont.
The CHP continues to search for a shooter and motive in the Crisostomo shooting. According to a family friend named Ashley several people were in the car at the time of the shooting, but Eliyanah was the only one that was hit.
"Everyone else was okay. And she probably died instantly," said Ashley. "I mean, I looked at the bullet holes on the side of that vehicle. There's no way a 5-year-old could survive that."
She choked back tears as she described the final moments of Eliyanah's life. She was sitting next to her brother, who's 11 months older, in the back of the family's SUV when she was hit by gunfire on southbound 880 in Fremont.
The shooting happened a day before Easter, and less than a week before her 6th birthday.
"They had Easter baskets on the kitchen table," said Ashley. "Her brother won't even open his. He said, 'Mom I can't open my Easter basket because my sister's not here.'"
Ashley said the family first went to Outback Steakhouse in Fremont for a birthday dinner, but it was closed. So they decided to head to the one in Milpitas.
"All of a sudden, their life changed. Gunshots," she said. "They didn't know what to do. They drove a little faster to try to get away."
Freeway shootings have plagued Bay Area roadways for more than a year. According to Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, shots were fired 154 times on Bay Area freeways in 2022. In comparison, there were 77 in Los Angeles.