Homeless man says he had warned Oakland cops about gunman

Patrick Reddic (center), with attorneys Melissa Nold and John Burris, says he tried to direct police to a gunman days before he shot up an Oakland neighborhood and was eventually killed by officers. Patrick Reddic (center), with attorneys Melissa Nold and John Burris, says he tried to direct police to a gunman days before he shot up an Oakland neighborhood and was eventually killed by officers. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Homeless man says he had warned Oakland cops about gunman 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A man who allegedly fired a gun at neighbors and police near the Oakland Zoo and Bishop O’Dowd High School — prompting officers to fatally shoot him — could have been apprehended three days earlier after he turned his rifle on a man who had been sleeping in a car, that man said Thursday.

Patrick Reddic, appearing at a news conference with civil rights attorney John Burris, said he reported alleged gunman Jesse Enjaian to Oakland police on Feb. 14 but was handcuffed and mistreated as a homeless, disabled black man.

“Why didn’t police prevent this from happening?” Burris said of the Feb. 17 shooting. He said he is investigating grounds for a potential lawsuit on Reddic’s behalf.

The morning shooting closed Interstate 580 and locked down large swaths of Oakland. Police said the 32-year-old Enjaian, who spray-painted an obscene image on a car and pointed his gun toward a news helicopter, opened fire on responding officers, forcing one to return fire. Enjaian later died at a hospital.

Three days earlier, just before 8 a.m., Reddic said he was sleeping in his 2001 Toyota Camry on Las Vegas Avenue, where Enjaian lived. “I was woken up to multiple gunshots,” he said. “At that time, I was confused. I was scared. I didn’t understand.”

Though Reddic wasn’t seriously injured in the attack, his car was severely damaged, he said. Reddic, who walks with the aid of a cane, said he slithered out of the driver’s door and began looking for help. In a disoriented state, the first person he approached was the gun-toting Enjaian, he said.

Enjaian, whom Reddic knew from the neighborhood, shouted at him to get off his lawn and used a racial slur, Reddic said. “I left with my hands up in the air, begging him not to shoot me,” Reddic said, adding that he went to a neighbor’s house to call 911.

When Oakland officers arrived, Reddic said he was immediately “the one treated as a criminal.” After he voluntarily accompanied the officers to a station to identify the man who shot at him, one of them patted him down and cuffed him, Reddic said.

Burris said it was a “gray area” whether Reddic had been legally detained, and he was driven back to Las Vegas Avenue not long after being cuffed. Back outside the Camry, which had shattered glass, Reddic said police gave him two options: leave the scene or be arrested — even though his tires were blown out by the gunfire. He drove away on squeaking rims, he said.

Reddic said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf personally called him and apologized for the way he was treated.

Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman, said in a statement that the department opened internal investigations into how police handled two earlier incidents on the 9500 block of Las Vegas Avenue — on Feb. 10 and Feb. 14.

A separate internal probe was opened into the police shooting of Enjaian, which will also be investigated by the Alameda County district attorney’s office.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley