Three fatally shot in Oakland at Thanksgiving family gathering

[Zafir]

OAKLAND, Calif. - Two brothers were in police custody Friday after gunfire erupted at another family's Thanksgiving dinner, leaving a widow, her brother and her mother dead.

 

 

Asmerom Gebreselassie, 43, and Temodros Gebreselassie, 39, were arrested late Thursday after allegedly opening fire with two weapons in a third-floor apartment at the gated Keller Plaza apartment complex in north Oakland. The men were booked on suspicion of three counts of murder. It's unclear whether they have criminal records.

 

Killed were Winta T. Mehari, 28, of Berkeley; her mother Regba Baharengasi, 50, of Oakland; and her brother, Yonas Mehari, 17. The family was originally from Asmara, Eritrea, and had lived in the U.S. about five years.

 

Another of Winta Mehari's brothers, a 28-year-old man, was seriously injured after jumping out a window to escape the violence. He was in critical condition Friday with a back injury, according to Oakland Police Officer Roland Holmgren. He may be paralyzed, but was expected to survive, he said.

 

Police and family members said the shootings were in retaliation for the March death of the men's brother, 42-year-old Abraham Gebreselassie, who was married to Winta Mehari. The couple has a two-year-old son.

 

Winta Mehari's family believes her husband died of a heart attack. A spokesman for the coroner's office said it's listed as an undetermined death, meaning an autopsy failed to reveal a specific cause of death, compounding the brothers' concerns.

 

"The story didn't add up for the death of their brother," Holmgren said. "(Winta Mehari) maybe had some involvement or wasn't being fully truthful about it."

 

A third brother of Winta Mehari, a 22-year-old man, also was injured as he fought with the gunman, causing him to drop his weapon and escape. The brothers allegedly responsible for the shootings fled to their family's apartment in the same sprawling complex, where they were later arrested, Holmgren said.

 

"They were very calm coming down the hallway," he said.

 

Asmerom Gebreselassie admitted shooting the Mehari family, Holmgren said.

 

A cousin of the victims, Fitsum Keflezighi, 34, of San Jose, said alleged accomplice Temodros Gebreselassie was eating and drinking coffee with the family when his brother knocked on the door and entered the apartment shooting.

 

"The guy who accomplished this, they were feeding him," Keflezighi said.

 

On Friday, dozens of Eritrean immigrants, many wearing headscarves, sobbing and wailing, streamed into the gated apartment complex to mourn the loss of their friends and to comfort the remaining family members holed up inside.

 

Mourners described the victims as peaceful, religious people and committed members of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, a Christian church in Oakland. Yonas Mehari was a senior in high school in Oakland, and his sister, "devastated" by her husband's death, had plans to go back to school to study business, Keflezighi said.

 

Thousands of Eritreans came to the U.S. as refugees during their country's 30-year war of independence with Ethiopia, or immigrated after the war ended in 1991. According to the Eritrean Consulate, about 7,000 immigrants settled in the San Francisco Bay area with about 2,000 of those in Oakland, many in the neighborhood where the shootings took place.

 

The tight-knit community gathers in cafes decorated with the red, blue, green and gold of the Eritrean flag to drink spiced coffee and debate the long-simmering border dispute with neighboring Ethiopia and their country's economic troubles.

 

The shooting has sent a "shockwave" through Eritrean immigrant communities across the U.S. that has already rippled out via the Internet to their small home country in Africa, Keflezighi said.

 

Many mourners arriving at the apartment complex Friday said they did not know the victims or the suspects but had heard about the slayings on the news and had come to grieve the loss to the community.

 

"This is the worst nightmare for Eritreans. We've never had this problem before," said Yikaalo Gebreselassie of Alameda, a friend to the victims and no relation to the men in custody.

 

 

Tragic story

[ElPunto]

^Sad - especially when the murders were done because of suspicions rather than any confirmation. Both Ethiopian and Eritrean communities are better behaved than Somalis though. Given numbers that rival or exceed Somalis in NA - their communities are rarely in the press.