BART, East Bay parks police investigating separate homicides in Oakland
OAKLAND — BART police and East Bay Regional Park District police were still investigating separate homicides that occurred around the same time Tuesday afternoon in downtown and East Oakland on Wednesday, according to authorities.
Both victims were assassinated by gunfire. BART police later reported that they had made an arrest in their case.
According to EBRPD spokesperson Jen Vanya, the park district homicide occurred around 2:20 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline boat launch on Doolittle Drive, near the Oakland International Airport. Officers from the Oakland and Park District arrived to find a male victim dead from a gunshot wound.
The victim’s name had not been released as of Wednesday afternoon. Park police also did not make any arrests or speculate on a possible motive for the killing.
A victim was shot dead ten minutes later, at 2:30 p.m., at a street level entrance to the Lake Merritt BART Station near a bus zone, according to a BART spokesperson.
A male suspect was apprehended an hour and a half after the shooting, thanks to “surveillance images,” according to a BART social media post. Police and jail records identified him as Juan Andes Martinez, 45, of Oakland, who was being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail. According to the agency, there was no indication that either the victim or the suspect was a rider.
According to a BART spokesman, authorities are attempting to confirm the identity of the man killed, who appeared to be between the ages of 35 and 40. Police have not released a motive for the killing or stated whether the two men knew each other.
The Lake Merritt station was briefly closed, but all trains were back on track by 4 p.m. According to BART, the station’s entrance at 8th and Oak streets remained closed due to the investigation.
