Shot Oakland officer undergoes second surgery

A veteran Oakland police sergeant who was shot in a fatal confrontation with a sexual assault suspect underwent a second surgery late Monday afternoon but is in stable condition, police said.

The shooting occurred outside a home in the 3800 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way, near the MacArthur BART station, at about 1:30 a.m. Monday, police said.

The sergeant, who has been with the Oakland Police Department for 14 years, and an officer who has only been with the department for a year fired shots that killed the 49-year-old suspect after the suspect opened fire on them, police said.

The sergeant and the officer came to the residence to investigate a report of a sexual assault that had occurred earlier in the evening, according to police.

While the officers were in front of the residence, the suspect, whose name has not yet been released, came out and began shooting at the sergeant and the officer with an assault rifle, police said.

The sergeant and the officer returned fire and struck the suspect, who was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, according to police.

The wounded sergeant was also taken to a hospital.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said Police Chief Sean Whent called her shortly after the shooting and she visited the sergeant at the hospital from about 2:30 to 4:30 a.m., arriving even before his family did.

Schaaf said:

“He was in a great deal of pain and his injury was very serious but he was incredibly brave and was focused an assisting the doctors.”

The mayor said being with the sergeant and his family at the hospital was “very poignant for me.” Schaaf said she had met the officer and his family when he was promoted to sergeant recently and described him as “an outstanding officer.”

The rifle that the suspect allegedly used was recovered from the scene and no additional suspects are being sought in the case, Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent said.

The shooting is the fourth involving Oakland police this year and the second resulting in a fatality, he said. It’s being investigated by the Oakland Police Department’s homicide and internal affairs units as well as by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Oakland police said anyone with information about the shooting should call their homicide unit at (510) 238-7230.

Police said they won’t provide any additional information about the incident until Tuesday morning.

Schaaf, who attended the memorial service last Thursday for Hayward police Sgt. Scott Lunger, who was fatally shot while making a traffic stop in Hayward on July 22, said the shootings of Lunger and the Oakland sergeant “are examples of the real danger that officers put themselves in every day to make our communities safer.”

Schaaf said the shooting in Oakland this morning is a reminder that the community needs to keep working on ways to “reduce violence in this city by creating opportunities for hope and peacefulness.”