OAKLAND, Calif. -- Police swarmed an East Oakland neighborhood early Wednesday in response to the shooting of a motorist, less than three weeks after someone fired shots at officers on the same block in an apparent ambush.
In an unusual tactic, dozens of officers mobilized before venturing onto the 5900 block of Bromley Avenue near Seminary Avenue to search for the person who shot and wounded the female motorist around midnight. When they went in, officers could not find a suspect.
The woman was shot in the leg on Bromley while driving her Toyota, police said. The victim, whose name was not released, continued on to 58th Avenue and International Boulevard and flagged down officers.
Police opted not to respond to the scene immediately, fearing a reprise of an attack on officers Aug. 1 in which someone fired shots at police on the same street.
That incident started when police spotted a stolen car about 1 a.m. on the 1300 block of 65th Avenue in the Lockwood Gardens public housing complex. The driver refused to stop and led officers on a chase, said Officer Jeff Thomason, a Police Department spokesman.
Police believe the driver called someone on his cell phone, and that the person on the other end directed him to drive to the 5900 block of Bromley. As the stolen car drove down the block at 25 mph, someone fired numerous shots at the officers trying to get the driver to pull over, police said.
Rounds were found from an AK-47 and an AR-15, both semiautomatic rifles, but police could not locate the gunman.
The driver of the car was later arrested near the Eastmont police substation on 73rd Avenue. Police have refused to release his name.
Residents of Bromley Avenue showed little sympathy for police Wednesday. Animosity for law enforcement was evident in a neighborhood that is home to relatives of Mack "Jody" Woodfox III.
Woodfox, 27, was unarmed when Officer Hector Jimenez shot and killed him on Fruitvale Avenue near East 17th Street in the city's Fruitvale district on July 25. Jimenez said he thought he saw Woodfox reaching into his waistband for a gun, after being stopped on suspicion of drunken driving, but no gun was found.
Many people have written "RIP Jody" on the wall of one of three yellow bungalows that police suspect was the source of recent gunfire.
"It's just sad that he had to go like that for nothing," said Woodfox's cousin Kesha Washington, 34.
James Montgomery, 31, said he could not commiserate with the officers who had been shot at, saying police routinely treat him and his neighbors with disdain.
"The police harass us," he said. "I'm trying to keep it real. Hell no, I don't have sympathy for the police."
Tasha Wilcox, 40, asked sarcastically, "Aren't they here to protect and serve?"
She spoke from behind a gate displaying a white T-shirt decorated with handwritten messages for Deandre Walker, 23, a former neighborhood resident who was shot and killed early Sunday on Fleming Avenue near Mills College.
The area has been the scene of several violent incidents this year. On May 3, Johnny Byrd, 23, was found shot and killed behind a building on the 5900 block of Bromley. On June 22, Percy Brown, 52, and his brother Mark Orviss, 36, were found shot and killed at a home on the 6200 block of Bromley.