Suspect in 2011 Berkeley shoot-out killed in Oakland

February 12, 2013 7:00 am by Frances Dinkelspiel
Berkeley police investigate Dec. 23, 2011 shootings on Sacramento Street. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

Berkeley police investigate Dec. 23, 2011, shootings on Sacramento Street. Photo: Frances Dinkelspiel

A 17-year-old Berkeley man who was allegedly involved in a five-way shoot-out on Sacramento Street in December 2011 was killed Saturday in another shoot-out in Oakland.

Tyler Frank Jamison, a former B-Tech student who lived on Hearst Avenue, was shot to death on the 4000 block of Quigley Street in the Laurel District of East Oakland, according to the Oakland Tribune. He was caught in a crossfire of bullets that erupted between two groups of people around 10:30 p.m., police told the Tribune. The firefight may have been gang-related.

Jamison had been charged with two counts of attempted murder, possession of a firearm, and other crimes in connection with the Berkeley shoot-out. He had been held in Santa Rita Jail without bail, but charges against him were dropped on June 13, 2012, when witnesses refused to testify against him, Assistant District Attorney Teresa Drenick told the Tribune.

In the Berkeley case, three young men, allegedly including Jamison, pulled out guns and started shooting at two other youths on Sacramento near Woolsey on Dec. 23, 2011, at 12:41 p.m. The two youths pulled out their weapons and fired back. Bullets hit nearby cars and houses, as well as the two victims, who ran southbound on Sacramento to escape. The three assailants ran north on Sacramento, turning east on Woolsey and then south through an apartment complex. Berkeley police used dogs to do a house-by-house search of a two-block area to locate the assailants, but were unable to locate the suspects.

“The route the three suspects used to flee would have put them in the rear yard of Jamison’s residence,” Berkeley Detective Todd Sabins wrote in court documents.

The two who were attacked were shot, one in the buttocks, and were taken by someone to Highland Hospital. One was treated and released and the other was admitted.

Jamison was a student at Berkeley Technical High School during the 2010-11 year and his photo was featured in a May 2011 San Francisco Chronicle story about searching for his family roots.

Related:
Dec. 23 shooting involved five men with guns [03.07.12]
Two arrested for shootings on Sacramento St. [01.24.12]
Two shot on Sacramento Street [12.23.11]

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17 Comments

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  • Anonymous

    What a nightmare. One less bad apple in Berkeley.

  • berkeleykev

    I didn’t see anything about a Frank Jamison in that Chron story… maybe he was involved in the project, but to say he was “featured” seems like a stretch, unless I missed something. (Which is always a possibility…) Was the Chron story edited after initial publication?

  • bgal4

    http://www.bhsjacket.com/january_18/gangs_no_longer_visible_issue_still_prevalent_berkeley

    The problem of gang violence has been swept under the carpet for decades, this story in the Jacket demonstrates how little, including this “knowledgeable: teacher) understands how gangs operate and who is involved locally.

    The hand-wringing begins:
    http://www.berkeleyschoolsreport.com/2013/02/tragic-shooting-of-former-b-tech-student.html

  • bgal4

    there was a large photo with caption in the original publication.

  • anonymous

    Look under Tyler Jamison, not Frank

  • PragmaticProgressive

    Frances, thanks for putting together the pieces of this very sad story.

  • berkeleykev

    Ah, ok, thanks. The current photo shows only Elliot Spillard and Anthony Johnson. Did the Chron crop the photo and edit the caption specifically to remove Jamison, I wonder?

  • Frances Dinkelspiel

    oops. Corrected.

  • berkeleykev

    Oh, now I see. I hadn’t noticed that it was a multi photo spread. My bad.

  • Frances Dinkelspiel

    Oops. Correction made. I added a word to point people toward the Chron’s photos, too.

  • iicisco

    I’m sure the phrase “live by the gun, die by the gun” somehow fit into his lifestyle.

  • Diana Rossi

    Dear Anonymous: This is a horribly insensitive comment. I am hoping that you did not realize this. This young man who died, was 17 years old. Yes, it looks like he was involved in violence previously. But he was a teenager.
    And he probably was not born into a life that gave him much of a chance. Or who knows, what compelled him to live the kind of life he lived. He is dead. Someone grieves for their child. In a way, our collective callousness, (and I DO indeed include myself in this cadre of folks who are slowly becoming numb), might be another outcome of this very violent world we find ourselves in. May this young man’s family find solace somewhere, in something.

  • http://berkeleyside.com Tracey Taylor

    Editor’s note: We deleted the comment to which Diana Rossi is responding as it was offensive.

  • guest

    No sob story childhood excuses attempted murder.

  • Guest

    The author of the BHS article is an excellent writer! He should be very proud of himself.

  • emraguso
  • Berkeleyborn123

    In Berkeley, the gangs are organized at the neighborhood level, typically recruiting and involving local kids in activities, and generally fall along ethnic lines. These activities can include having young kids (<10) posted as lookouts for police or holding narcotics or weapons. As the kids get older, they can get involved in direct sales to customers, and the enforcement and recruiting efforts that goes along with that work. Fortunately, much (but not all) of the violence perpetuated by gangs in Berkeley is targeted at individuals from other gangs, and by luck (or something) there has not been the open war which exposes the general population to violence (see example Chicago). The problem is that the solutions proposed often do not recognize that the gang is a well organized entity, profitting from activities such as protection rackets, prostitution, and dealing, and will do what it can to make these activities as profitable as possible. This means in order to reduce the crime committed in pursuit of these profits, the gang must be dismantled and replaced by something else, though this is not easy and there is not the political will to do it in many areas. The lack of will is reflected on the inability for cities to pass basic injunctions or curfews on known members, thereby allowing them to be on the street with others and at times where violence typically occurs while everyone else in the neighborhood is held hostage to that violence.