The victim was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and two minors were taken into custody, according to Oakland Police. Police said two firearms were recovered at the scene.
“The role that violence interrupters play is to focus on the time immediately before and after an incident of violence,” Griffin said. “We can understand when tensions are getting high and can get in front of that … and in the case when there is violence, we can be there in the immediate aftermath to try to bring down the tensions to make sure that retaliation doesn’t occur.”
The School Violence Intervention and Prevention program evolved out of a partnership between the district, the city and local nonprofits to bring intervention and gender-based violence workers and life coaches into schools.
Initially, violence interrupters rotated across multiple campuses, but in fall of 2023, they were assigned at seven high schools and continuing schools throughout the district, and have expanded to more sites, including Skyline.
During the program’s first year, OUSD saw a 10% reduction in suspensions for physical violence across its high schools. In 2024, interrupters mediated more than 260 conflicts, according to Griffin.
When violence occurs on campus, Griffin said, interrupters help ensure conflicts don’t lead to retaliation and identify whether it might spill off campus. He said in the hours after the shooting at Skyline on Wednesday, other Youth ALIVE! interruptors working throughout the city came to the school site to provide support.
“This is the moment where we could start to coordinate between our school-based programs and our community-based programs,” he said.
Hutchinson said this week’s shooting underscores a need to expand the program — not let it expire when funding dries up this spring.
The city allocated $5.4 million to the program in its 2023-2025 budget, and the district also received a nearly $1 million grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to fund three additional interrupters for three years.
