Bullets stole the life of a pregnant mother of four on a Wednesday morning and the driver of a Chevrolet Impala on a Tuesday night.
They tore through the legs of two men, authorities said, and shattered glass inside a van full of innocent bystanders, including three children. They sprayed from a minivan into a taxicab and caused vehicles to careen, overturn and eject passengers.
For months, gunfire has turned some San Francisco area highways into a free-fire zone for unrelenting, unstoppable gang violence. This week, local leaders said they’d had enough.
Since November, 28 shootings along Interstate 80 and Highway 4 have led to four deaths and at least a dozen injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol, prompting five Bay Area mayors to call on Gov. Jerry Brown to help mitigate a situation they say has reached “crisis proportions.”
In a letter signed Thursday, mayors from Hercules, Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole and El Cerrito asked the governor to provide emergency funding for the installation of surveillance cameras at on and off ramps and to upgrade the existing live traffic camera network, crucial moves that they hope will help law enforcement capture footage of suspects and lead to arrests.
“Our freeways have become the place of choice to undertake these murderous activities due to perceived ease of escape and the fact that there are not any surveillance cameras with recording capability to assist in any criminal investigations,” the mayors wrote.
Their letter said that elected officials and residents of West and East Contra Costa counties feel the community is “under siege” and that the rampant gun violence puts all commuters at risk.
“We offer assurance to the public that we take their concerns very seriously and understand that although we know these shootings are not random, this fact can be of little consolation to the motoring public,” the California Highway Patrol said in a statement Wednesday, one day after the area’s 28th highway shooting left one man with a bullet wound in his leg.
Many of the shootings appear to be gang-related, authorities said in the statement, making them difficult to investigate because often victims and witnesses refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.
The shootings have terrorized a network of freeways on San Francisco’s East Bay side. Fifteen people have been shot along Interstate 80, five on Highway 4, four on I-580, three on I-880 and one other on Highway 242, according to CHP.
Over the holiday weekend, state troopers will be conducting their annual Memorial Day Maximum Enforcement Period, which usually focuses on seat belt usage but this year will be especially mindful of distracted drivers and highway violence.
Five people have been arrested on charges related to the spate of highway shootings, CHP said Thursday. Authorities believe several of the people they’ve detained have been involved in multiple shootings.
“There are community members out there who probably know exactly who’s involved and what’s going on, and we’d ask that they come forward,” CHP spokesman John Fransen told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Sometimes people think their information isn’t useful, but there is no piece of information that is insignificant when you’re dealing with this type of case.”
Family members of the shooting victims have called for justice, especially those of 25-year-old Shanique Marie, who was shot and killed in early May while riding in a car along Highway 4, reported ABC 7 News. Marie was pregnant at the time of her death, and left behind four children under the age of 6.
“She loved her kids. She loved her kids. She was always smiling. She was always laughing. She kept our family together. She kept us together,” Patricia Johnson, Marie’s mother, told the TV station. “My baby was 25 years old. My baby deserves, and her kids deserve, to know whoever done this.”
Witnesses said they saw people in a white Mercedes open fire on the car in which Marie was traveling, ABC 7 News reported. Another man in the car with her was injured.
The mayors’ letter acknowledged that there are “competing priorities” for state funds, but that the freeway system is the responsibility of the state.
“Rather than do nothing we’re trying to get something started so it doesn’t fall by the wayside,” Pinole Mayor Roy Swearingen told the Chronicle. “We have to start making some noise.”
The letter comes just four days after the Pittsburg City Council approved a plan to spend $100,000 to install security cameras along a section of Highway 4, the location of several shootings, including the one that killed Marie, reported NBC Bay Area.
“When I get on the freeway I am concerned and my family is concerned,” City Councilman Pete Longmire told the TV station. “My wife won’t take the freeway unless she absolutely has to.”
Not all figures in the Bay Area’s political arena agree that security cameras are the solution.
Conrad Dandridge, a candidate in the Contra Costa District 5 supervisors race and a management program analyst with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Oakland, told the East Bay Times that the mayors’ letter is political grandstanding. In a telephone interview with the newspaper, he said camera technology is not advanced enough to provide substantial evidence that can be used in court. His solution involves providing more funding for police and diversion programs that deter gang activity.
