Even as the number of shootings on Bay Area freeways surged over the last four years, the gunmen were rarely taken into custody. Arrests were made in just 15% of the 457 shootings reported between …
OAKLAND — The fusillade of bullets began just after midnight, as muzzle flashes erupted from a vehicle on Interstate 580, carving up a party bus hosting a girl’s 21st birthday celebration as it rolled down the freeway through East Oakland in May of 2021.
Driven by gang violence and a rise in road rage – as well as a proliferation of guns – reports of shootings on freeways and highways in the nine-county Bay Area have quadrupled over the last four years, according to data from the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate division. “If they’re going to continue to get away with these freeway shootings, that’s the way to kill now, isn’t it?” Hughes said.The rise in freeway shootings has been seen across most of California – a report from the CHP to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office that represents the most recent statewide accounting indicated freeway shootings jumped nearly 90% from 2019 to 2020, with a 55% increase in the Bay Area in that time period.
Most of the freeway violence has been concentrated in the East Bay, with Alameda and Contra Costa counties accounting for about 65% of the reported shootings in the Bay Area from 2018 to 2021. But shootings have surged across the region, with double-digit increases reported in multiple areas, including Solano and San Francisco counties.
Cameron Simmons, 26, was driving home to his pregnant girlfriend from his new job at Tesla’s Fremont facility when he was shot in August 2020 on Interstate 80 near Fairfield. He died in the arms of another motorist, after his car weaved to a stop on the freeway, said his aunt, Loren Nails, of Castro Valley.
The division has doubled the number of detectives in its special investigations unit since 2018 to better investigate the swell of shootings, Barclay said. As of March, the agency had eight detectives and a supervisor who – among other responsibilities – are tasked with investigating freeway shootings in Napa, Solano, Sonora, Marin, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties, along with much of Santa Clara County.
Low numbers of arrests raise the risk of retaliatory killings, if the public gets a sense that justice won’t be served, he continued. And people may sense that freeways are a place where they can get away with such crimes – leading to ever-rising rates of freeway shootings. Instead, the analysts advocated for more cameras and surveillance of the state’s highways, pointing to research suggesting that increased cameras or lighting can reduce crime without the need for additional officers.
Authorities routinely point to two factors driving up the increase in shootings: An increase in gang-related violence spilling over from neighborhoods onto freeways, and an uptick in road rage. Rather than a random shooter targeting drivers, most shootings appear to happen between two people who know each other, or who have become embroiled in high-speed disputes.
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