Oakland ends 2024, ushers in 2025 with deadly wave of violence
Despite ending 2024 with a decline in homicides, Oakland marked the start of 2025 with a wave of violence, which included multiple deadly shootings on New Year's Eve and early New Year's Day.
Two separate shootings in the overnight hours left two people dead. Large groups also took to the streets during a sideshow.
Jalen Wesley called the incidents a bitter start to 2025.
"It's New Year's and somebody's family is, you know, mourning for mom, sister, brother, daughter," Wesley said.
Wesley is an Oakland resident who lives downtown -- not far from the scene of one of last night's shooting.
A spokesperson for OPD said gunfire sent three people to the hospital and left one person dead on 2nd Street near Jack London Square.
This happened just hours before another shooting on 24th Avenue killed a 32-year-old man, marking the first homicide of the year.
Wesley told CBS News Bay Area he was disappointed.
"There's two sides of Oakland," he said. "And I feel like at times, sometimes the crime overpowers what Oakland truly is."
These shootings come just days after only a day after city leaders touted a dip in homicides for 2024.
In a press conference, officials said the number of homicides dropped more than 30%, a significant decline from 2023.
Following the New Year's Eve shootings, 2024 closed out the year with more than 80 homicides.
Carrol Fife, city councilwoman for District 3, said she was saddened by the violence, but doesn't think the violence means the city isn't recovering.
"We have the right systems in place to move Oakland in the right direction," Fife said. "And that's what's encouraging about how we get to a place where we're at zero homicides."
Wesley says the sour start to the year doesn't mean 2025 has to follow the same trends. Incoming new leadership gives him hope.
"There's a new police chief, and as far as them getting settled with the new mayor, and I hope to see some new changes to where criminals don't feel comfortable here," he said.
