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A deadly turn of the calendar: Cops probe New Year’s violence in Oakland, SF

Crime scene police tape is visible across an image with shadowy figures in an interior doorway.
Shootings in Oakland and SF brought the year to a violent end. | Source: Adobe Stock

A shooting near Jack London Square that left one dead and three wounded marked the end of a violent New Year’s Eve in Oakland, which saw two other homicides earlier in the day and another just hours after the clock struck midnight.

Meanwhile, San Francisco police made an immediate arrest after a fatal shooting by a gas station at 17th Street and Van Ness Avenue just 25 minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day.

When officers showed up to the Van Ness shooting, they found a man on the ground suffering from gunshot wounds, the San Francisco Police Department wrote in a news release. The victim died at the scene, officials said.

The shooter fled in an SUV, which police say they found a short time later around Bayshore Boulevard and Geneva Avenue. The suspect, a 29-year-old named Jose Rivera Flores, was arrested without incident, police said, and booked on a homicide charge.

The shooting by Jack London Square, on the 200 block of Second Street, happened just after 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, according to news reports, and claimed the life of a 32-year-old Los Angeles man. The East Bay Times reports that a 22-year-old woman from Fairfield, a 21-year-old from Newark, and a 25-year-old from Sacramento were wounded.

In an email to The Standard, an Oakland Police Department spokesperson said officers found one victim at the scene. A short time later, dispatchers were notified about three others who took themselves to local emergency rooms.

“Unfortunately, one of the victims succumbed to their injuries and was pronounced dead at the hospital,” the department spokesperson said.

His identity is being withheld pending notification to next of kin, the police spokesperson added.

A few hours earlier, around 7 p.m., someone was stabbed to death in an unrelated incident on the 1900 block of 70th Avenue. Around 7 a.m., in yet another apparently unrelated case, a 32-year-old father from Richmond was fatally shot outside his job at an Oakland business.

William "Willie" Bernstine, a father of two babies, was shot to death while walking into work early on New Year's Eve, police say.

And just a few hours into the first morning of the new year, Oakland police responded to yet another fatal shooting.

According to Oakland police, the year’s first homicide took place around 3 a.m. on the 2400 block of 24th Avenue.

“When officers arrived, they located a victim who sustained a gunshot wound(s),” officials told The Standard. “Paramedic personnel responded to the scene to assist, but unfortunately, the victim succumbed to their injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

That person’s name is being withheld, too, until authorities notify relatives.

The spate of violence came after Oakland saw a 35% drop in homicides in 2024, ending the year with 86.

San Francisco saw a similar decline in homicides, ending 2024 at a 60-year low.

Jennifer Wadsworth can be reached at jennifer@sfstandard.com