15-month-old girl wounded by barrage of gunfire in Oakland

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A 15-month-old girl was shot in the stomach by a stray bullet that hit her family’s vehicle in Oakland, police said. She underwent surgery and is in stable condition.

The family was driving home Monday evening through Oakland — which has experienced a surge of shootings in recent days — when they heard a barrage of gunfire as they approached an intersection, Lt. Seth Neri said at press conference Tuesday.

When the gunfire stopped, the child began to cry, Neri said. The father got out and went to the rear passenger seat to comfort her, but did not realize she had been shot.

The family discovered the girl was wounded when they got home, and immediately drove to a fire station for help.

Detectives obtained video showing a man on a street corner firing at a vehicle, Neri said.

“We believe that the victims were not the intended target but were caught in a crossfire,” he said.

The child’s name was not released.

Oaklands recent surge in gun violence includes the killings of a woman and her 13-year-old daughter Saturday night. A third person was wounded.

“I think the challenging component of this is that there is no rhyme or reason for a lot of the cases,” said Roland Holmgren, acting deputy chief for the bureau of investigations.

“The common denominator here is — and we see all over the place — is the saturation of firearms in our city streets and the willingness for people to settle differences and pull the trigger and not care where that bullet goes,” he said.

The department has seized about 350 firearms so far this year, Holmgren said.