DA charges Oakland man in fatal shooting of girlfriend, her teen daughter at sleepover
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office charged an Oakland man with multiple offenses, including two counts of murder, in connection with the double fatal shooting of his girlfriend and her teenage daughter, as well as the injury shooting of the daughter’s friend during a weekend sleepover at an East Oakland apartment.
Two other children — an infant and a 7-year-old — and another adult were in the home during the shooting, but were not injured in the shooting.
In a sworn probable-cause declaration shared by the district attorney’s office Tuesday, an officer said police responded at 11:09 p.m. last Saturday to an apartment building in the 9500 block of Birch Street for a shooting report.
When officers arrived, a witness directed them to a man, identified as Antonio Powell, leaving an apartment. After searching him and finding a magazine, officers took him to a patrol vehicle while other officers entered an apartment and found 13-year-old Desiree Jenkins, who had been shot in the head, and her mother, 44-year-old Rebecca Jenkins, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in a rear bedroom. First responders pronounced both dead inside the apartment.
The shooting’s third victim, an injured 12-year-old who suffered a gunshot wound to her leg, was found at a Birch Street apartment a block away after managing to flee to safety. The teen told investigators that Powell shot her, Desiree and Jenkins.
According to the statement, Powell spoke without being asked of a “firearm” by a trash can. A Glock 23, which was determined to be registered to Jenkins, was found near trash cans about 20 feet from the front door, court records show.
Officers also spoke with the uninjured adult who had been inside the home when the shooting happened. That adult told police she saw Powell armed with a black firearm moments before hearing gunshots and seeing him start to shoot at the two youths.
In an interview on Monday, Jane Diehl, who lost both her daughter and granddaughter in the shooting, said the last thing she heard the 13-year-old say was, “don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me.”
“Nobody has a good answer as to why he did it, nobody knows,” Diehl, 70, said. “But he’s in prison now. And I hope he rots in there.”
The District Attorney’s Office charged Powell with two counts of felony murder, as well as assault with a firearm, four counts of child abuse, possession of a firearm and ammunition by a prohibited person. In addition to multiple special allegations about the victims’ vulnerable states and Powell’s poor prior performance during post-release supervision, the charges noted his prior 2013 conviction for fourth-degree assault in Oregon’s Marrion County.
Powell was listed in custody at Santa Rita Jail without bail, and faces arraignment Wednesday morning at an Oakland courthouse, according to a county records check.
At a press conference Tuesday, Oakland police Acting Deputy Chief Roland Holmgren acknowledged the weekend shooting, as well as a West Oakland shooting Monday night that left a person dead and another injured, as part of a grim toll.
“We’ve had numerous shootings right between homicides and just shootings, whether they’re negligent discharges of firearms in our streets to actually someone being injured and struck by around to the unfortunate loss of life,” Holmgren said in part. “I think that the challenging component of this is that there is no rhyme or reason for a lot of the cases.”
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.