Two teenage brothers, both Berkeley High School students, were killed in a shooting Saturday night at a birthday party in Oakland that turned violent.
The shooting happened just before 10 p.m. Saturday in the 950 block of Apgar Street in the Longfellow neighborhood of Oakland near the Emeryville border. Family members of the two slain boys say they were attending a birthday party at an Airbnb or other type of vacation rental unit. Two other people at the party were also injured in the shooting.
The victims have been identified as Jazy Soleto, 17, and her brother Angel, 15, who were the eldest in a family of six children, with a single mother. The boys’ cousin, Melani Garcia, talked to ABC 7 and said she was frustrated that many people jumped to the conclusion that the teens were in a gang or connected to illegal activity.
“From my vantage point, I feel like I’m seeing two young brown kids being victims of gun violence and most people’s minds automatically jump to association with a gang,” Garcia told the station. “That’s not true! My little boys weren’t affiliated with anything. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A neighbor across the street, Martin Opsahl, tells KPIX that he saw about 20-40 teenagers attending the party.
“It started out as a commotion, you know, just people drinking, kind of a gathering, and it started to turn into bickering and hostility, and before you know it, two guys come upstairs. upstairs and start shooting at each other,” Opsahl said.
The boys’ aunt, Erika Galavis, tells the Chronicle that a masked gunman “stormed” the party, and it’s unclear who the intended targets were. The boys’ 13-year-old brother was also at the party and survived.
Galavis said the Soleto brothers grew up playing football and Jazy wanted to move to Los Angeles to work in the fashion industry. Angel, she said, was “a sweet soul” who wanted to be an architect.
The older brother allegedly called their mother about 30 minutes before the shooting, asking to be picked up. But she said she started getting frantic calls and texts from other parents about the shooting just before she left the house.
Berkeley High School said its counselors will provide resources and support to students this week.
“We are deeply saddened to learn that two Berkeley High School students and beloved members of the BUSD community lost their lives yesterday in a senseless act of gun violence,” Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel said in a statement Sunday. . “We will hold all of our children close to us tonight.
The family settles down a GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses, and he’s already doubled his goal of $35,000.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the OPD Homicide Section at (510)-238-3821.
There was no confirmation as to which company might have been used to rent the unit where the party took place. Airbnb announcement early in the summer that it was taking steps to prevent all house parties, at least over Memorial Day and July 4 weekends, including canceling two-day rentals and refusing rentals to customers without previous positive reviews.
A Halloween party at an Airbnb rental in Orinda was the scene of a bloody five-fold homicide in 2019. After making multiple arrests of suspects in the weeks following the shooting, police have yet to solve the crime and no one was ever charged.
Saturday’s shooting came just days after several gunmen entered an East Oakland high school and opened fire, injuring six people, including two students. These suspects are still at large.
Oakland has seen again another fatal shooting Sunday morning, that brought the city’s homicide total to 99 for the year to date.
Top image via GoFundMe
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