Juneteenth celebrators stop ambulance in street to twerk, dance on roof following deadly shooting
Thomas McDonald
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Nearly a thousand people clogged the streets in Oakland California to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday, allegedly preventing an ambulance from making its way to the location of a shooting where multiple people were injured and one died.
Multiple women were seen grinding against and twerking on the side of an ambulance as its lights flashed but was unable to move through the crowd. At one point, a man jumps on top of the ambulance and appears to throw a football into the crowd. As the paramedics attempted to do their jobs, the partiers continued to show no concern for the seriousness of the situation.
“Shooting at Oakland CA Juneteenth celebrations last night, leave 1 dead and 5 injured. This is how people reacted when the EMTs arrived,” tweeted someone with video of the incident.
Six male victims ranging in age from 16 to 27 and one 21-year-old female suffered gunshot wounds, and a 22-year-old San Francisco resident died, according to the Oakland Police Department.
“Immediately after the shooting, Oakland Police Officers observed two men running from the scene with firearms,” the police department said in a statement. “Both men have been arrested and two firearms recovered.”
It remains unclear whether the two individuals arrested are connected to the shooting, and there is currently a $40,000 reward for anyone willing to offer up information regarding the shooting, according to the Oakland PD statement. Investigators say they believe the shooting is related to gang activity in neighboring San Fransisco.
Read the statement from Oakland Police Department here:
The shooting occurred shortly before 6:30 P.M. about a mile north of the Lake Merritt Amphitheater, where an estimated one thousand people gathered to commemorate June 19, 1865. The date when enslaved blacks in Galveston Texas gained their freedom, nearly two months after the Confederacy surrendered.
The Independent Chronicle reached out to the FALCK Almeda Medical Services for comment but did not immediately receive a response.