Protesters Demand Answers in CHP Fatal Shooting of Erik Salgado

Roughly 1,000 demonstrators marched in East Oakland Monday afternoon, demanding justice for a young man shot and killed by California Highway Patrol officers in East Oakland late Saturday night.

Although authorities have released little information about the incident, protesters contend that CHP officers fired a hail of bullets at a car driven by 23-year-old Erik Salgado, killing him and injuring his pregnant girlfriend in the passenger seat, within blocks of his mother’s house.

“They could have shot a child, they could have shot anybody, they could have shot into someone’s home and killed someone, but clearly they didn’t care. We want justice for Erik, we want it now,” said Hoku Jeffrey, a national organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the social justice group leading the march.

Joined by members of Salgado’s family, demonstrators gathered Monday afternoon in front of Elmhurst United Middle School — which he once attended — raised their fists in the air, faced all four directions and took a knee. Chanting “Say his name,” they then marched to the site of the shooting on the 9600 Block of Cherry Street, where a makeshift memorial has been erected.

Calling it “no less than a public execution,” organizers claim that CHP officers fired more than 40 rounds at Salgado’s car, and are demanding the officers involved be immediately identified and detained, with personnel records made public.

News of the shooting comes in the midst of massive protests against police violence that have raged for weeks in scores of cities across the country — including many in the Bay Area — sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man killed at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Unlike Floyd’s death, there is no video footage capturing Saturday’s shooting, and details remain murky. The Oakland Police Department, the lead agency investigating the incident, has said only that CHP officers were conducting a criminal investigation at the time.

“I’m angry as a spectator. I’m angry as someone whose been incarcerated. I’m angry as someone whose gone to protests, been gassed and zip-tied,” said Hayden Reynato, with Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. “At the same time, I’m angry for all my friends and family who have been hurt over this.”

One police source told NBC Bay Area on Sunday that investigators believe the Dodge Challenger Salgado was driving is one of 72 cars that were stolen the previous week from a San Leandro Dodge dealership during a spate of looting incidents that occurred across the region.

This report includes additional reporting from KQED’s Susie Neilson and the Associated Press.

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