OAKLAND, Calif. — Three people were killed at a Juneteenth party in the San Francisco Bay Area last month. A 23-year-old guy from Oakland has been charged in connection with the crime.
Four people were shot at the Oakland event, and JaJuan Kelly, 23, was charged with four counts of felony attack with a semiautomatic firearm, the Alameda County district attorney’s office said in a statement Wednesday.
Multiple suspects are being sought by police, and District Attorney Pamela Price said she was “deeply relieved to announce that one of the individuals” has been charged.
Kelly was one of 14 people shot and hurt on June 19 at an unofficial sideshow that happened after a calm party that thousands of people had attended. No one was killed, and the people hurt were between the ages of 20 and 30. At first, police said 15 people had been shot, but later they changed their count.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Kelly’s lawyer, Ernie Castillo, said Wednesday that it might have been a case of self-defense.
People who were slaves in Galveston, Texas, found out they were freed on June 19, 1865. This was two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and after the end of the Civil War.
In 2021, Juneteenth was made a government holiday, and it is now known more widely outside of Black America.