A man in his 20s was fatally shot in the 1100 block of Channing Way in southwest Berkeley on Tuesday night, authorities report.
A woman called police at 9:30 p.m. to report hearing a gunshot go off.
Arriving officers found a man inside a home on Channing Way near Byron Street. He was unresponsive and had a gun in his hand, according to radio dispatches reviewed by Berkeleyside.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Initially, police thought his death might have been a suicide. Within hours, however, officers determined that the case was a homicide and called in detectives to investigate, according to BPD.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Alameda County coroner’s office said the man’s name could not be released due to a press hold.
Limited information has been available due to the ongoing investigation. Berkeleyside will share additional details when they are released.
Early Wednesday morning, Mayor Jesse Arreguín said the fatal shooting was alarming and heartbreaking.
“Any loss of life is a loss to our whole community. No one should lose their life due to gun violence,” he said. “This tragic and unacceptable homicide is an example of the challenges we face in addressing gun violence in our city and region and we must commit ourselves to not only finding out who committed this terrible crime and seeking justice, but to investigate and prevent crime from happening in the future.”
Arreguín said he had full confidence in the Berkeley Police Department to investigate and find those responsible for the killing.
“We need to support their work through increasing investigative capacity and staffing in our department,” he said. “My heart breaks and goes out to the family and friends of the victim.”
Police responded to a shooting at the same Channing Way home last year in September.
Tuesday’s death was Berkeley’s second homicide in 2022.
The first, also a fatal shooting, took place two months ago on Seventh Street in southwest Berkeley. Police performed CPR on 47-year-old Anthony Joshua Fisher at the scene, but he died in the hospital several days later.
There were no fatal shootings in Berkeley in 2021.
The Berkeley Police Department asks anyone with information about the incident to call the Homicide Unit at 510-981-5741.
Berkeleyside updated this article after publication with information from the mayor’s office, coroner’s bureau and BPD.
