Teens Involved In Apparent Murder-Suicide

Oct. 27 (BCN) -- San Leandro police said Thursday that a shooting incident near San Leandro High School that claimed the lives of a 14-year-old girl and a young male appears to be a murder-suicide.

Police Lt. Marc DeCoulode called the 7:55 a.m. shooting at 136th and Wake avenues, two block away from the high school, "a sad and tragic event."

DeCoulode said it appears that the male and the girl "were acquainted" but he said he didn't know if the shooting resulted from a love relationship that went bad.

DeCoulode said the girl lives in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred and was walking to San Leandro High School, where she was a sophomore, when the male drove up in a 1995 Chevrolet Camaro and stopped in the middle of the street.

The male got out of the car, shot the girl three times in the back with a shotgun and then shot himself, DeCoulode said, adding that it appears that the male fired a total of five or six shots.

DeCoulode said police know the girl's name but are choosing not to release it because she was a juvenile.

He said police haven't identified the male yet but they think he's a teenager and they think he wasn't a student at San Leandro High School, didn't live in San Leandro and resided elsewhere in the East Bay.

The car is registered outside the Bay Area, he said.

DeCoulode said the girl is Hispanic and it appears the male is as well, although that hasn't been confirmed because he hasn't been identified yet.

Although DeCoulode said he couldn't say if the shooting resulted from a love relationship, a woman who lives one block away from the shooting incident and witnessed it at close range said she's convinced that's the explanation for the incident.

"They're young - it's a love thing," said the woman, who was shaken up by the incident and didn't want to give her name to reporters.

The woman said she had only driven her car one block on her way to work when she happened to be next to the male when he got out of his car and started shooting.

"I was next to him, that's why I was so scared," she said.

Although DeCoulode said he doesn't have any information that the male said something to the 14-year-old girl, the woman said "he said something" to her before shooting her three times and then shooting himself twice.

The woman said she was only about 10 to 15 feet away from the male when he started shooting.

She said that after he shot himself, he was still alive for a while.

The woman said her family had just recently moved to the residential area from another location in San Leandro because "this is a quiet neighborhood."

San Leandro City Councilwoman Surlene Grant, who represents the area, lives nearby and came to the shooting scene, agreed that "it's a very quiet neighborhood and a great neighborhood."

DeCoulode said San Leandro only averages four to five homicides a year and has now had three homicides this year.

The city's most highly-publicized homicide this year was the shooting death of San Leandro police officer Nels "Dan" Niemi on July 25.

DeCoulode said the 14-year-old girl lived in the area with relatives.

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