Tensions deepen over police’s role amid homicide surge

By Sarah Ravani and Jill Tucker

A day after a brazen robbery turned into a deadly shootout involving a former Oakland police captain, residents and officials tried to make sense Friday of what happened and what it means for a city experiencing a wave of violent crime and debating the role of law enforcement.

Police continued their manhunt for two suspects while worrying over one of their own: retired police Capt. Ersie Joyner, who was still in the hospital in critical condition after he was shot by at least one of the robbers. Experts, meanwhile, offered differing views on Joyner’s decision to shoot at the assailants.

Local activists on Friday mourned the young man who Joyner fatally shot during the incident, another statistic in a city that has faltered badly this year in its long-standing effort to reduce crime and stem bloodshed.

The incident feeds into the debate over how to prevent and address violent crime and the trauma that comes with it, and funding of the police force — key issues that the city is grappling with and will likely dominate the upcoming mayor’s race.

“Every shooting, every death in this city is a tragedy,” said outgoing Mayor Libby Schaaf. “We take each one incredibly seriously and recognize the absolute harm and trauma that it has on our entire community.”

Joyner is well known in the city for his past role in overseeing the city’s Ceasefire program, a plan to reduce violence through community partnerships. Those targeted by Ceasefire are told that violence must stop, and they are offered support and services. But they are also put on notice that further violence will lead to a sustained police crackdown.

Joyner has more recently turned to operating cannabis businesses.

A surveillance video obtained by The Chronicle shows three suspects approach Joyner as he pumps gas into his car at a Chevron station adjacent to Interstate 980 near downtown Oakland.

The three suspects surround him and appear to go through his pockets before moving away from him. Joyner then pulls a gun and fires multiple times. One of the young men falls next to the gas pump while at least one of the two others return fire before escaping in their vehicle.

Joyner was shot several times. One suspect died at the scene.

“I rarely find myself defending an officer in a fatal shooting, but this time I am doing that,” said Suzanne Luban, a Stanford University law professor and associate director of the college’s Criminal Defense Clinic. “I watched that video and don’t think any legal scholar, defense attorney or prosecutor could argue this is not valid self-defense.”

Yet UC Berkeley law professor Andrea Roth said it’s more complicated.

The use of deadly force is generally not allowed as self-defense unless it’s necessary to repel an immediate deadly threat, she said. The video shows one suspect had gotten in the car to leave, while another appeared to be going through Joyner’s car through the passenger seat and the third was facing sideways.

There are a lot of questions, said Roth, an expert in criminal law. Was Joyner under immediate deadly threat? Did the robbers brandish a weapon? Did he believe he was under immediate threat?

“Of course a jury is the one who would decide all of this,” she said, adding that first prosecutors would have to charge him. “He wasn’t actually being subject to an assault of some kind at the time he brandished the weapon.”

The identity of the man Joyner killed was not immediately known, but social media posts identified him as a rapper from Vallejo.

The two other robbery suspects were being pursued, and it wasn’t clear whether authorities had identified them. An Oakland police spokesman said no additional information on the investigation was available.

There have been 115 homicides to date this year in Oakland, compared with 102 in all of 2020. It’s unclear how much the pandemic played a role in the increasing violence, but the Ceasefire program, for example, could no longer do in-person counseling or provide rides to court hearings, or go to hospitals to comfort and counsel victims of violence to prevent retaliation.

Barry Donelan, the president of the police officers’ union, said Thursday’s robbery and shooting illustrates “the level of violence we are seeing on our streets.”

“The fact that it’s one of our own is shocking,” Donelan said. “Is this what we want Oakland to be?”

Some city leaders said the brazenness of the crime in broad daylight was horrifying — and showed that more needs to be done to curb escalating violent crime.

Council Member Treva Reid, who represents part of East Oakland, said the robbery was tragic and a “lot to process.” Reid, whose district has disproportionately been impacted by violent crime this year, said gun violence in the community is traumatic for those who have experienced it.

Her 21-year-old son was shot and killed in Ohio in 2013.

“It resonates deeply and personally for me,” she said. “It’s real. It’s raw and I regret that it is what we have to live everyday.”

Reid said mentors, life coaches, job training programs, home ownership programs and rental assistance would all help with preventing violence — an approach pushed by some of her colleagues, including Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas and Council Member Carroll Fife.

Bas and Fife were unavailable for comment.

Council Member Loren Taylor said part of the problem is the lack of accountability for perpetrators of crime. He said he wants to beef up the investigative units of the Police Department and add video surveillance throughout the city in hopes of improving solve rates.

This month, Frederick Shavies, the homicide section commander, said the Oakland Police Department had a solve rate above 40% for homicides — a figure criticized by some council members.

Taylor, who announced last month that he’s running for mayor, has taken a stance of supporting more police presence on city streets.

“People aren’t going to do this type of thing if they know there is a much higher likelihood that they will be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

Anti-police activists, though, disagree that the city needs more cops on the street.

For Antoine Towers, the tragedy was first and foremost in his mind. A violence interrupter, he was at the scene Thursday to see if there was anything he could do.

“It was a robbery that went bad, but it was a young life that was lost,” he said, adding that it was yet another example of society failing to teach young people what they could be and what they should be. “It’s more of us getting to our kids and teaching them the outcomes that come from the decisions we make.”

He wondered whether any of these young men were raised to be a doctor. Was that instilled in their childhood?

“The community is not teaching us to be what we’re supposed to be,” said Towers, who said he was a “jackboy” too, carjacking and stealing in his youth. “We feel we can’t have certain jobs that can make us have the lifestyles we want.”

Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, said the incident is the “type of consistent violence we’ve been experiencing as Oaklanders,” but she said more police are not the answer.

“To stop violence, we must lead with peace, investments in prevention, provision of basic human needs like housing, clothes and shelter and healing of trauma,” Brooks said in a statement.

Attorney John Burris, who often represents the families of victims of police shootings and is friends with Joyner, said he’d been to the gas station many times. The two have shopped for Mother’s Day cards together and teased each other over the fancy cars they drive.

“I’ve known Ersie for many years and I know he’s a man who bleeds Oakland,” Burris said. “It’s ironic. He’s fighting against violence and becomes a victim of it.

“It’s symbolic, unfortunately, of what’s going on.”

Sarah Ravani and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sarravani, @jilltucker