Sheriff’s recruit fatally shot on San Francisco Bay Bridge

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — An Alameda County Sheriff’s recruit was killed Tuesday in a shooting on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge while heading home to San Francisco, authorities said.

The recruit, whose name has not been released, was set to graduate in February, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said.

The 28-year-old man was taken to a hospital where he died from his injuries, according to the California Highway Patrol, which is investigating the fatal shooting.

His colleagues told KTVU-TV that he had been driving home from the training facility in Dublin.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, told the television station the recruit was in his civilian clothing and in his own unmarked car when he was shot.

Investigators have not said if the recruit was targeted or if he was hit by a stray bullet.

Nelson said it was as an awful day for the department, calling the killing a “senseless murder.”

“You see these stories all the time, sadly,” Nelson said. “As a guy who’s grown up here, it’s hard for me to believe all these acts of violence happen, repeatedly, over and over and over again. And today it hit home. And it’s just awful. Awful.”

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office published a video on social media showing Alameda County sheriff’s deputies and CHP officers saluting a flag-draped casket of the recruit as it was loaded into the coroner’s van at Oakland’s Highland Hospital.