Mother gunned down in Oakland after shooing children to safety

Chyemil Pierce was killed March 9, 2015, in Oakland. Police say she was caught in the crossfire of a gunbattle on Chestnut St. and was killed while trying to ensure her children got to safety. Chyemil Pierce was killed March 9, 2015, in Oakland. Police say she was caught in the crossfire of a gunbattle on Chestnut St. and was killed while trying to ensure her children got to safety. Photo: Family Photo Photo: Family Photo Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Mother gunned down in Oakland after shooing children to safety 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

When shots rang out on her West Oakland block, Chyemil Pierce’s first instinct was to protect her children. The 30-year-old mother screamed at her 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter to run as bullets flew.

Her kids ran around their house and hid, cowering in fear. They were unhurt, but their mother was hit by a stray bullet — and died outside the family’s home.

The slaying, amid an apparent gunfight, was the city’s 19th this year. The horrific details prompted shock and outrage just a week after a young father was killed outside his home in the Oakland hills.

“Every life taken by senseless gun violence is a tragedy,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. “Without a doubt, the families who have lost loved ones face the most immeasurable pain, but our city also suffers. We cannot flourish as a city under siege. We must come together to end the violence.”

The series of events that left Pierce dead began about 4:45 p.m. Monday, when the churchgoing human resources employee at Kaiser Permanente parked her car after picking up her children from school.

The family was walking home on the 2800 block of Chestnut Street when a confrontation between two groups erupted further north, near 30th and Chestnut streets. Neighbors said a group of women began fighting, and a man pushed one of them. The woman apparently called some of her friends, and they arrived and began shooting.

“It just went on and on,” said a woman who didn’t want to be named. “At first, naive me, I thought it was fireworks. It felt like it went on forever, but it was probably only a minute or so.”

Gunfire was exchanged, and when it was over, Pierce lay wounded. Two people possibly tied to the altercation, a teenage boy and a man, were also wounded but were expected to survive.

A contractor working at Pierce’s home said Tuesday that he was inside working when he heard the gunfire — and instantly hit the ground.

“The shots were like, 35 to 50 shots,” said the contractor, who did not want to be identified by name. Asked if he believed more than one gun was used, he said, “From the sound, it was one, then there was another in response.”

He said he saw Pierce’s children running around the side of the house. The girl hid behind some stairs, while the boy ducked nearby.

He spotted the boy first and asked him, “Where’s your sister?” After finding her, he told both children, “Come here, come here,” and shepherded them into the house, hoping that they hadn’t seen their mother’s body on the street.

“Now they don’t have their mom. That’s sickening,” he said. “That’s very crazy. Who are these crazy-ass people? She wasn’t involved in anything!”

Pierce, who had plans to marry, also leaves behind a 1-year-old son, who wasn’t with her at the time. Her children are staying with relatives.

“The family is in a state of shock. We never saw this coming,” said Pierce’s sister Aushaunti Regis. “She does not come from a tragic background. She comes from a well-groomed family.”

Regis said her sister’s youngest child “will never be able to know or appreciate all the love his mother had for him.” She said in the four generations that the family has lived on that block, they had “never experienced a tragedy like this.”

“We were saddened to learn about the death of one of our Kaiser Permanente employees,” company officials said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to her friends and family in the wake of this terrible tragedy. We are providing grief counselors and other support services to our employees during this difficult time.”

Oakland City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who represents West Oakland, said Tuesday, “It’s hard to find words to talk about a tragedy of this magnitude. The truth is that we are grieving almost daily in this town for a loss of life, and when I think about Ms. Pierce, your heart goes out to her family, to these children who will grow up without a mother.”

She said Pierce was “from all accounts, a very beautiful mother who was just a delight. She was literally caught in the crossfire.”

Tension lingers

As of Tuesday, no arrests had been made. In Pierce’s neighborhood, Oakland police officers slowly circled the block in their cruisers, hoping to head off any potential retaliatory violence.

The threat was all too real. Police said a shooting near Highland Hospital in Oakland on Monday night was probably tied to the gunbattle that killed Pierce.

No one was hurt and no one was arrested in the incident, which took place about 8 p.m. outside the front of the hospital near East 31st and Stuart streets. ShotSpotter, the city’s gunfire-detection system, recorded 25 to 30 shots. The hospital was on lockdown for about 45 minutes, said Alameda County sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly.

A police sergeant reported seeing a gold Dodge Stratus leaving the hospital after the shooting and heading toward 14th Avenue. Sheriff’s deputies stopped the vehicle at 14th Avenue and East 17th Street and determined that the occupants weren’t suspects but were either trying to get away from the gunfire or were the intended victims, officials said.

Oakland has already seen violence in different neighborhoods this year. On March 3, 21-year-old Marcus West, the father of a 2-month-old boy, was shot dead outside his home on Scotia Avenue, off Golf Links Road.

Pierce’s neighbors said they were distressed by the violence. They said Pierce did the best she could, sending her kids to a charter school in West Oakland and staying in the home where she grew up, where her mother and grandmother had died.

'Absolutely senseless’

“Horrific and absolutely senseless,” said one neighbor, who didn’t want to give his name for fear of retribution.

The man said he saw several young men involved in the gunbattle and Pierce “running after her kids.”

“She was a bystander,” he said. “She was trying to get her kids back into her house.” He said Pierce “loved her kids.”

Another neighbor, 42-year-old Ysaura Richie, said, “We play around here with our children, but now we cannot do that. We need to keep our children in the house. That’s sad.”

Syfr Zero Saba, 46, said, “We’ve had little shootings here and there, but this was the worst. It's sad. An innocent life, a woman was killed.“

Henry K. Lee, Rachel Swan and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com and pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @henryklee @rachelswan @pfimrite