Father, baby son shot dead in Oakland After girl and pet sitter, Oakland sees more deadly violence

An 8-year-old girl at a sleepover. A pet sitter driving through her neighborhood. And now, a father and his 1-year-old son, in Oakland for a slain relative's funeral and sleeping in a bedroom filled with children.

The latest horror to visit a city already reeling from gun violence happened early Wednesday, when someone opened fire through the window of an East Oakland home where 17 members of an extended family were staying.

When the shooting stopped, 20-year-old Andrew Thomas lay dying near his 1-year-old son, Drew Jackson. The boy, mortally wounded, died before sunrise at a hospital.

Unlike the July 17 killing of young Alaysha Carradine and the fatal shooting a week later of Judy Salamon in her car, police think someone set out to kill Thomas. But even longtime investigators were shocked that someone would fire indiscriminately into a bedroom where four children were sleeping.

"It's absolutely unacceptable that we have children being shot while they sleep in their bed," said interim Police Chief Sean Whent. "It is horrific."

Whent said police aren't certain why the shooter had targeted Thomas, who grew up in Oakland but had moved to Fresno with his son.

Thomas had returned to Oakland for the funeral next week of his cousin Alquino Rivera, 18, who was shot and killed Saturday as he sat in a car in East Oakland. Kendell Eatmon, 33, a Hayward parolee who has been convicted of drug offenses, has been arrested and charged with murdering Rivera.

The window of the room in which Andrew Thomas, 20, and his 1-year-old son, Drew Jackson, were sleeping has holes where the bullets entered, killing Thomas at the scene. Baby Drew died at the hospital. The window of the room in which Andrew Thomas, 20, and his 1-year-old son, Drew Jackson, were sleeping has holes where the bullets entered, killing Thomas at the scene. Baby Drew died at the hospital. Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Father, baby son shot dead in Oakland 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

Thomas and other relatives of Rivera were staying in a home on Ghormley Avenue in the working-class neighborhood of Brookfield Village, about a mile southeast of the Coliseum complex.

Fired through a window

At 2:45 a.m. Wednesday, Whent said, "someone was brazen enough to go into the backyard of the house," stepped around the children's bicycles piled on the ground and opened fire through a window.

Thomas' aunt, Konya Baylis, 33, described a chaotic scene as her family woke up to the sound of gunfire tearing through the home.

"I started paddling on the floor and screamed, 'The babies!' " Baylis said. "I came into the room, looked, and my sister had baby Drew in her arms, all bloody, saying, 'They shot the baby!' "

None of the other 11 adults and four children, three of whom were in the same bedroom as the father and son, was hurt. But both Thomas and Drew were near death.

Link to cousin's killing?

Baylis gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the boy until paramedics arrived. As she did so, Thomas "turned over and made his final movements," she said.

Police said they were exploring whether Wednesday's shooting and the killing of Thomas' cousin over the weekend were linked as part of a feud. Officers were also girding for the possibility of additional violence stemming from the killings of the father and son, police said.

The recent violence has been all the more frustrating for Oaklanders because in many cases, the killers are still out there.

Killers on the loose

No one has been arrested in the shooting of Alaysha, who died when someone fired a fusillade through the front door of her friend's apartment in the Dimond neighborhood. The killing of Salamon, who was shot in the head as she drove down the street in broad daylight near her East Oakland home, remains a mystery.

As neighbors covered the shattered window of the Ghormley Avenue home with plywood and swept broken glass from the carpet of the blood-stained bedroom, Baylis said she expected police would find the killer of her nephew and great-nephew.

"There's a baby involved in this," she said. "Anytime someone that young dies, they're on it."

In the longer term, Whent said, police hope to cut gun violence by fully funding a program called Operation Ceasefire. The strategy, in use in several other cities, including Richmond, consists of having police and community group representatives sit down with gang members to offer them job training and other social services. Those who don't put down their guns face a police crackdown.

Standing alongside Whent at a press conference, Mayor Jean Quan predicted police would target 200 to 300 of the city's most violent gang members within the next year.

"It's my No. 1 strategy to bring down violent gang shootings in this city," Whent said. "It's been successful in other cities - there's no reason it can't be successful here."