Oakland City Council president’s relative dies in shooting

Oakland City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney addresses the press during the unveiling of the new canopy over 19th Street Bart Station entrance at 20th and Broadway streets in Oakland, Calif. Friday, March 6, 2015. less Oakland City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney addresses the press during the unveiling of the new canopy over 19th Street Bart Station entrance at 20th and Broadway streets in Oakland, Calif. Friday, March ... more Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Oakland City Council president’s relative dies in shooting 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

An Oakland councilwoman who has made it her mission to eradicate gun violence is mourning the shooting death of a teenager whom she considered a grandson. It’s the latest jolt for a city that’s been trying hard to chip away at its murder rate.

In an emotional Facebook post, Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney said the death of 17-year-old Torian Hughes made her more determined than ever to wipe out the scourge of gun violence in Oakland.

“None of us, not one of us is immune,” McElhaney wrote in the post, indicating that Hughes’ death had added a personal dimension to a pressing political issue. The councilwoman later said that she helped raise Hughes and his mother, Audrey Candy Corn, and considers both to be members of her family.

“My baby, like so many other babies, has lost his life needlessly,” she said at a vigil Thursday, where about 50 people said prayers and lit candles in the 900 block of Mandela Parkway in West Oakland, where Hughes was gunned down.

‘No gangs, no nothing’

He was killed Sunday afternoon during what his aunt Lalena Hughes said was an attempted robbery.

“He wasn’t into anything. No gangs, no nothing,” the aunt said. “That’s why I’m so mad. He didn’t deserve that.”

Police have not arrested any suspects in connection with the homicide, according to Officer Marco Marquez, an Oakland police spokesman. He declined to discuss a possible motive for the slaying.

Police officers responded to reports of the shooting at 1:40 p.m. and began first aid when they found Hughes. Paramedics took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“May his soul rest in peace, his family find comfort, his community and nation rally to end senseless gun violence,” McElhaney wrote on her Facebook page.

A close friend of Hughes’, 18-year-old Breonna Williams, said McElhaney treated Hughes “like he was her son.”

Tiara Phalon, 28, who helped lead two summer youth programs Hughes attended, described him “a very sweet young man.”

“People say that all the time, but in this case it was so true,” Phalon said. “His loss was a community loss.”

Lalena Hughes described her nephew as “a good kid,” and said he’d once worked at Children’s Fairyland park, where he was hired to dress up as an armadillo.

A GoFundMe page was set up to support the family and had reached about half its goal of $7,000 as of Thursday afternoon.

Last month, McElhaney told reporters that the quick arrest of a suspect in the Sept. 29 fatal shooting of artist Antonio Ramos, who was killed while painting an antiviolence mural in her West Oakland district, showed that Oakland “means business” when it comes to stemming gun violence.

On Thursday, she described the surge of shootings in Oakland as “a preventable disease.”

The City Council is pursuing a number of gun-safety measures. One proposed law would make it a crime for residents to leave guns or ammunition in unlocked vehicles, where they have become prime pickings for thieves.

Oakland has recorded 83 homicides in 2015, roughly on par with the 78 tallied in the city by this point in 2014, according to the Police Department’s latest statistics. The number is high when compared with other big cities around the state but represents improvement in the longer term. Oakland suffered 119 homicides by this point in 2012 — and 145 in 2006.

Since July 2009, 40 students in the Oakland Unified School District have been slain, according to district spokesman Troy Flint.

Hughes briefly attended McClymonds High School but was in an independent study program at the time of his death, Flint said. The slaying, he said, “underscores all the work we have to do as a school district and as a community” to end gun violence.

‘A hole in my heart’

Many elected leaders in Oakland share those sentiments, including Mayor Libby Schaaf, who prioritized public safety both in her 2015-17 budget and her State of the City address in October.

“There is a hole in my heart for Lynette,” Schaaf said in an interview Thursday.

“Every loss of life is tragic,” the mayor said. “It particularly cuts deep when it’s a family member of someone you know.”

Schaaf is working to boost the number of police officers in Oakland to 800 by the end of 2017. Currently, the force has 735 officers, with another 50 in training.

While Oakland has made gains in cutting violent crime in the past few years, shocking killings like that of Hughes have underscored the problems that remain.

In March, Chyemil Pierce, a 30-year-old mother, was killed by a stray bullet while trying to protect her children. Ramos, the muralist, was gunned down in September. Days later, an ice cream truck driver, Jasvir Singh, 45, was shot and killed in East Oakland.

‘It takes a toll’

“It takes a toll on everybody,” said Councilman Dan Kalb, who is pushing the new gun safety measures with colleagues Rebecca Kaplan and Annie Campbell Washington.

“We go up and down, we have these shootings and murders,” Kalb said. Yet, he added, “we’re all committed to doing more and more to try to reduce violent crime.”

Hughes’ mother, Corn, seemed resigned on Thursday afternoon, speaking at the vigil.

“At the end of the day, my son died nobly,” Corn said, “by choosing not to pick up a gun.”

Anyone with information about the homicide is urged to call homicide investigators at (510) 238-3821 or the police tip line at (510) 238-7950.

Kimberly Veklerov and Rachel Swan are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov @rachelswan