On Saturday night (June 6), members of the East Oakland California Highway Patrol (CHP) reportedly stopped 22-year-old Erik Salgado for a traffic stop a block away from where his mother lives. They reportedly shot at the vehicle over 40 times. Salgado was killed and his girlfriend, who is four months pregnant, was shot and injured.
The reason for which Salgado was stopped is not yet known. The Oaklandside Editor Darwin BondGraham was one of the first at the scene.
“Two houses had cameras pointed right at the scene of the shooting and neighbors said CHP took copies of video,” he wrote on Twitter. “There will be video of what happened.”
In 2013, BondGraham contributed to a report that examined the significant portion of the city budget that went towards funding the police. According to UC Berkeley, Oakland’s officers are among the highest-paid in the nation.
When asked to confirm if she knew who conducted the routine-turned-fatal stop, friend of the family Norma Rodriguez said, “CHP, local police department, county… it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day they are one unit. They’re the largest gang in America.”
The news of Salgado’s death comes less than a week after the police killing of 22-year-old Sean Monterrosa in Vallejo.
Oakland Black Youth Organizers, Anti-Police Terror Project and Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice have planned a vigil for June 8 at 3:30 p.m. PT.
“This is a youth-lead peaceful vigil in hopes of bringing the community together for black and brown solidarity,” they wrote. They plan to march to the murder scene in remembrance of Salgado and as a way of uniting their voices to the growing cry to defund the police.