12:27 PDT OAKLAND -- A 1-year-old boy and his 20-year-old father were shot and killed early Wednesday in East Oakland, the latest horror in a city already reeling from recent slayings of an 8-year-old girl at a sleepover and a neighborhood dog walker.
The father, whom relatives identified as Andrew Thomas, grew up in Oakland, was living in Fresno and had returned to the city to attend the funeral of a cousin slain over the weekend, relatives said.
He and his son, whom relatives identified as Drew Jackson, were shot when someone opened fire at 2:45 a.m. into the back of a home on Ghormley Avenue in which at least 17 people were sleeping. The boy died at a hospital, and Thomas died at the scene.
Thomas' aunt said he had returned to Oakland to attend the funeral of a cousin, Alquino Rivera, 18, who was shot and killed Saturday as he sat in a car on Ney Avenue in East Oakland.
Police said they were exploring whether the two shootings 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 crime scene, in the working-class Brookfield Village neighborhood about a mile southeast of the Coliseum complex, was cordoned off by yellow police tape. Children's bicycles were piled up in the backyard of the single-story home.
Thomas' aunt, Konya Baylis, described a chaotic scene as her family woke up to the sound of gunfire shattering a window.
Baylis, 33, said at least 12 adults and five children had been sleeping in the home while visiting from Fresno to attend Rivera's funeral. She said Thomas and her great-nephew "Baby Drew" had been sleeping together in a bedroom with three other children when shots rang out.
"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!' '"
Drew's mother was staying with relatives in Antioch, Baylis said.
Baylis said she had given the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until paramedics arrived. As she did so, Thomas, who appeared to have been shot in the neck, "turned over and made his final movements," she said.
Veteran police investigators were shocked by the violence.
"Any time a young child is killed, we're all saddened by this," said police Sgt. Dom Arotzarena. "We're obviously sad for the loss of human life, but when it's a baby, I mean, come on. It's unconscionable."
The killings happened hours after Oakland neighborhoods participated in National Night Out, an event in which streets are closed off and residents and police officers mingle at potlucks to foster community safety.
Drew was the second child to be slain in Oakland in less than a month. On July 17, 8-year-old Alaysha Carradine was killed during a sleepover at a friend's apartment on Wilson Avenue in the Dimond neighborhood. She died when someone rang the doorbell and opened fire.
A seemingly unexplainable shooting a week later claimed the life of Judy Salamon, a 66-year-old pet sitter, who was killed at 1:30 p.m. as she drove on Fern Street in the Fairfax neighborhood of East Oakland, a few blocks from her home.
No arrests have been made in either killing, and police implored the public to come forward with tips.
"Any time a 1-year-old little boy loses his life - we had an 8-year-old little girl lose her life - we need to work together," said Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman. "The community has been very supportive in helping to work and come together. But this is where we are going to really need to depend on each other, to share that information, to identify who's responsible."
