Deadly end to 2024 in Oakland despite overall homicide drop

OAKLAND, Calif. - The last day of 2024 and the first day of the new year were wracked with deadly violence in Oakland despite an overall homicide and crime drop that city leaders had touted the day before.

Five people were killed from Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening – three on New Year's Eve and two on New Year's Day, according to police.

Willie Bernstine, 32, was killed Tuesday at about 7 a.m. near 14th and Poplar streets near his job at a commercial dishwashing supplier. Video at the scene showed a heavy law enforcement presence outside Auto-Chlor, where officers' cars were parked and police were looking for evidence.  

Witnesses told Oakland police the shooter approached him with an AR-15-type rifle and shot him dead before leaving in a car.

"Why? When you got so many people out here that do wrong. Why take somebody who's doing right?" his mother, Leah Freeman, asked aloud. 

Then at 8 p.m., a person was stabbed to death in the 1900 block of 70th Avenue, police said.

Two and a half hours later, police were called to the 200 block of Second Street in Jack London Square where they found a victim with gunshot wounds, police said. 

That person was taken to the hospital, where three other victims had also taken themselves. 

One of those victims died, police said, and the three others were still being treated for injuries. 

"It sounded like fireworks," said Jack London Square resident Haadi Khatibloo, who then noticed a different sound. "Like pop, pop, pop and it didn’t sound like the way fireworks go off."

"I heard one loud pop and I actually said, ‘That sounds like a gunshot,’ but I just kept watching TV until we saw the lights," said Josh Rowan, who is Oakland's director of transportation and public works, and who lives one block away, where a window in his building's lobby was hit by a bullet.

The East Bay Times reported the person who died was a 32-year-old Los Angeles man and those injured are a 22-year-old Fairfield woman, a 21-year-old Newark man and a 25-year-old Sacramento man.

The owner of nearby Tiger’s Tap Room, Brian Chan, is worried about the safety of his customers, and concerned that crime will hurt his business.

He has a message for city leaders.

"They need to do something fast to be honest, because right now there’s a whole wave of closures," said Chan. "So many other cities are recovering and bouncing back, but Oakland is not."

Oakland's final homicide count ended at 86 people killed in 2024, according to the East Bay Times. There were 126 homicides in Oakland in 2023. 

"If the situation does not improve, I plan to move out of this community," said Wei Huang who lives in Jack London Square.

And the city recorded its first homicide of 2025 at about 3:30 a.m. New Year's Day. 

Police said they were called out to the 2400 block of 24th Avenue just before 3:15 a.m. When they arrived, they found a person shot to death. No other details were released. The East Bay Times reported that it was a 46-year-old man. 

By early evening on New Year's Day, police were investigating another fatal shooting that happened on the 1200 block of 65th Avenue. At around 5:30 p.m., responding officers found a victim who had been shot. Paramedics transported the victim to a local hospital where they were pronounced dead. Police said the victim's identity was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The circumstances of this death are being investigated by police. 

Police have not revealed any motives or any suspect arrests in any of the homicides. 

All this comes on the heels of a Monday news conference where Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell and members of Faith in Action East Bay touted a 34% reduction in homicides and non-fatal shootings in 2024 compared to the year before. 

That's because the now-recalled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao brought back the Ceasefire program, where police and social services come together to identify people most at-risk for causing violence and focus their efforts on changing their behavior.

Ceasefire workers and life coaches reached out to more than 200 of these people last year. 

Mitchell said that despite budget woes, the Ceasefire program will remain intact. 

Anyone with information is asked to contact the OPD Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821 or the TIP LINE at 238-7950. If people have videos or photos they can send them to cidvideos@oaklandca.gov.

OaklandCrime and Public Safety