By Will Kane
The San Francisco Chronicle
OAKLAND — Oakland police shot and killed a man Monday after he and three other people led officers on a car chase through East Oakland, authorities said.
One person was still at large as night fell, and two others had been detained, said Officer Jeff Thomason, a spokesman for the Police Department. Officers were conducting a search through a neighborhood near Highland Hospital for the suspect.
The incident began around 2:15 p.m. when undercover officers spotted a car on 35th Avenue that they believed was linked to a shooting last week. The officers asked a marked unit to pull the car over, Thomason said.
The driver refused to stop and led police on a chase of about 3 miles before crashing into a home on the 3300 block of 13th Avenue, near the hospital and Interstate 580, Thomason said. The home suffered minor damage, and no one inside was hurt.
After the four people in the car jumped out and fled on foot, two police officers opened fire and shot one of them to death, Thomason said.
He said he did not know what had prompted the officers to shoot, but that a handgun had been found near the man. An assault weapon was found in the car, Thomason said.
One neighborhood resident, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said she had heard what sounded like an exchange of gunfire.
“It was like, ‘Pow, pow,’ and then, ‘Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow’ - seven or eight times,” she said.
Officers detained two people suspected of being in the car. The fourth occupant was still at large, and officers with dogs cordoned off a number of blocks as they searched.
The names of the dead man and the two people detained have not been released. Police also have not identified the two officers who opened fire.
As is routine after police shootings, the officers have been placed on paid leave while the department and district attorney’s office investigate the shooting.
Residents of a neighborhood near Highland Hospital watch officers conduct an investigation after a fatal police shooting.
Copyright 2010 San Francisco Chronicle