One dead, five wounded in shooting on Lakeshore Avenue near Oakland’s Lake Merritt

One person died and five others were wounded in a shooting on Lakeshore Avenue alongside Lake Merritt in Oakland on Saturday evening, police said.

Oakland police received reports of shots fired in the 2200 block of Lakeshore Avenue at 6:22 p.m. Saturday, police said, just as roughly 1,000 people were celebrating around the lake.

The gunfire victims were five males aged 16 to 27, and one 21-year-old woman, police said.

One of the victims — identified only as a 22-year-old man — died at the hospital, police said. The five others were in stable condition on Saturday night, police said.

Police said officers saw two men with guns running away from the scene “immediately after the shooting.” Both men, whose names were not released on Saturday night, were arrested. Police said they recovered two firearms.

Investigators with Oakland police’s Homicide Investigation Unit are working to determine if the men are connected with or responsible for the shooting, police said.

The shooting sent hundreds of people running away from the scene. By 7:30 p.m., police had largely locked down the scene with police tape and the commotion had subsided.

Nancy Douyon watches behind police tape as police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting at Lakeshore and Brooklyn avenues.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Mayor Libby Schaaf condemned the shooting, saying that the “joyous occasion at our Lake Merritt was marred by a senseless act of gun violence.” Large crowds had spent the day in the area celebrating the first federally designated Juneteenth holiday.

For Nancy Douyon, 35 — who had been celebrating Juneteenth around Lake Merritt since 8 a.m. Saturday — the shooting is “not an example of what this community is,” referring to Oakland.

“Everyone had a very chill vibe except for this. It’s unfortunate, and very sad,” Douyon said. “We shouldn’t let this ruin this day.”

Douyon said the celebrations around the lake drew Bay Area residents from Vallejo to Hayward, all gathering to commemorate Juneteenth, which President Biden designated as a federal holiday just days ago.

“I think some individuals were targeted,” Douyon said. “I still feel like Oakland is a safe city. It sounds like a couple of bad apples, and it doesn’t represent Oakland.”

At the scene Saturday evening at the eastern edge of the lake, police officers had placed markers around what appeared to be roughly 30 bullet casings.

John Samaras and his wife, Lili, were peering behind the bars surrounding the porch of their apartment building on Merritt Saturday night.

They said their nephew found shell casings on the street earlier. “Right there,” Lili said, pointing to the curb ten feet away.

Ken Lee, who lives in an apartment building on Excelsior a block from Lake Merritt, said he arrived home from work around 7 p.m. to see police “zigzagging around the blocks” and over the medians.

“Cops were out here in full…