Oakland 6th grader hit by spray of bullets on Mother's Day

OAKLAND, Calif. - A sixth grader at Claremont Middle School in Oakland was shot in the rear on Sunday afternoon as she and her family were about to deliver their grandmother a Mother’s Day card, her family told KTVU. 

Sheila Brooks said her daughter, Jalah Henry, 11, still had the bullet lodged inside her buttocks on Monday, where she spoke from UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Doctors feared that removing it at this point would mean too great of a loss of blood, she said.

Jalah and an older cousin were both the victims of gunfire, Sheila Brooks and two of her relatives said, during a drive-by shooting about 4 p.m. at 24th and Adeline streets behind McClymonds High School. The older cousin suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from the hospital, relatives said.

Jalah's mother and two aunts told similar accounts of what happened to KTVU and provided a police report number to reference.  Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson confirmed that officers responded to the shooting of an 11-year-old girl in the 2300 block of Adeline on Sunday, but did not provide any more details. 

According to the family, an 18-year niece named Sabrina Brooks had gotten into a fight with a group of women inside Nick’s Liquors on Adeline Street earlier on Sunday. Sheila Brooks said she thought the fight was over a boy. The women yelled at Sabrina that they were coming back for her and shouted, “You’re about to die,” an aunt, Cecilia Brooks, recounted. A number for the shop was not working on Monday.

About an hour later, a man driving a black Kia SUV, with two of the same women from the store fight, came back to the neighborhood, Sheila Brooks said. She was driving with her daughter, Jalah,and her 5-year-old son, and they all were about to deliver her mom a Mother’s Day card. Her son spotted the weapon first.

“Mommy, they have a gun,” he told her. 

Bullets flew, and another aunt, Regina Brooks, said that there were at least 13 relatives and friends all standing outside on the sidewalk when the drive-by occurred. Many of the relatives live within blocks of each other.

“I’m just worried about all those innocent people getting hit,” Regina Brooks said.

Her sister, Cecelia Brooks added: “We never got to give our Mother’s Day card.” 

As for Jalah, her mother said that Sunday was certainly the worst Mother’s Day of her life.

“She’s just a child,” Sheila Brooks said, adding that her daughter gets straight As and loves art. “They could have ended her life.”