Andrew Thomas, 21, and his one-year-old son Drew Jackson were visiting family in East Oakland, California when they were fatally shot in their sleep Wednesday morning, reports ABC7 News.
Father and son had traveled from Fresno, California to visit family and attend the funeral of a cousin, Al Rivera, 18, who was shot and killed last weekend. Thomas and baby Drew were asleep when at least one gunman entered the backyard of his aunt’s home at around 3:00 a.m. and sprayed the house with bullets.
“He was still breathing when they took him up out of here,” said aunt Konya Baylis of the baby. “I called 911, and she was telling me to stay on the phone and then he was still kinda breathing and then he turned over then he laid down and blood was kinda coming out of his mouth.”
Read more from ABC7 below:
“The Oakland Police Department is gonna dedicate every resource we have available to bringing resolution to this and catching the people responsible for this,” OPD Chief Sean Whent said.
Police have not announced a motive for Thomas’ murder, but have said they believe at least one gunman came to the back of this house and fired off shots that hit both Thomas and his infant son.
Baylis doesn’t know who fired the shots, but believes it may be related to the shooting death of Thomas’ cousin, 18-year-old Al Rivera, who was shot in the 8000 block of Ney Street on Saturday.
“I think the shootings are possibly connected because Andrew and Al hung out together,” she said.
But Baylis said she doesn’t know why someone would have been upset at Thomas and Rivera, because she thinks they were good people.
Baylis said Thomas, who would have turned 21 on Sept. 6, “wasn’t a bad kid” and had attended Castlemont High School in East Oakland. She said he didn’t graduate but was planning to take general education development courses to complete his high school education.
She added that Rivera “was a good person, too, and didn’t get into too much trouble.” Baylis says he was attending a private high school in Oakland and was planning to graduate in December.
Baylis said her sister, who is Thomas’ mother, decided to move to Fresno four years ago after Thomas’ cousin, 21-year-old Webster Johnson IV, was fatally shot in the 1900 block of 90th Avenue in East Oakland at about 3:53 p.m. on Aug. 27, 2009.
See ABC7 news report below:
Unfortunately, babies being killed has increasingly become a horrific reality.
As previously reported by NewsOne, Koman Willis, 33, was charged with first-degree murder in the March 11 shooting death of 6-month old Jonylah Watkins in Chicago, according to officials.
Willis was also charged with aggravated battery for shooting her father, Jonathan Watkins, according to Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Atty. Anita Alvarez.
Cornell Harvey, 26, and Eddie Tarver, 20, were charged with first- and second-degree murder in the death of 16-month-old Carter Scott in Baltimore, Maryland.
The child’s father, Rashaw Scott, 22, who was critically injured in the attack, believes that Harvey set him up to be killed.
On March 21, 2013, Antonio Santiago, 13-months-old, was fatally shot in the face while being strolled by his mother, Sherry West in Brunswick, Georgia. De’ Marquise Elkins, 17, was charged with 11 counts of murder, while his alleged accomplice Dominique Lang, 15, was charged with 7 counts of murder. The teens are accused of killing baby Antonio after West refused to hand over money.
With the exception of baby Antonio, all of the toddlers were in the care of their fathers at the time of their murders, and the fathers are all suspected to have been the targets.
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1-Year-Old Baby, Father Fatally Shot While Sleeping In East Oakland [VIDEO] was originally published on newsone.com
