OAKLAND — With an 8-month-old baby girl at home and summer break coming to a close in a couple of weeks, Wednesday night was going to be a rare night out with friends.
Instead, Taiteanna Turner, just 16 and a new mother, became Oakland’s 69th homicide victim of the year.
Her uncle, Brandon Turner, said his niece was ready to hit the town. She styled her hair, dressed up and then posted pictures of herself on Facebook about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Five hours later, about 11:30 p.m. the teen was gunned down outside Oak’s Market and Liquor store in the 2700 block of Talbot Avenue at the corner of Foothill Boulevard, police said. No arrests have been made.
“She was just going out to have a good time and to my knowledge she met up with some friends and they went to the store,” said Brandon Turner, 29. “I was told she walked in the store, purchased some candy and when she came out, some men approached and started shooting.”
A 23-year-old man, who police said was friends with the teen, was wounded and is expected to survive. His name was not released. Officer John Haney said the teen and the man were with a group of people who had just left the store and were on the sidewalk when someone approached the group on foot and began shooting.
On Thursday, clerks at the store said they could not discuss the shooting and have given video surveillance tapes to police.
Brandon Turner said his niece had grown up quickly. She had to. She was just 12 when her father was murdered. Her mother, 35, is now terminally ill. Taiteanna became pregnant at 15 and gave birth to an 11-pound daughter late last year. She had been staying with an aunt and uncle in Oakland, police said.
“My niece lived life. … She didn’t just exist. She learned some things after her father was killed at a young age and then with her mom being sick she learned how to be a woman at an early age. She wasn’t going to let the stigma (of being a teen mother) hold her back,” Turner said.
Taiteanna was enrolled at Oakland High School through last April when she stopped attending, said Oakland school district spokesman Troy Flint, who did not know if she had planned to return when school opened later this month.
Police were on the scene Thursday investigating the shooting, and friends and family brought bouquets of flowers, a Teddy bear and about 20 balloons to remember her, tying them to a nearby fence.
The remnants of the shooting remained. The flurry of gunfire put a bullet hole in a work truck parked on Talbot; a car windshield parked on Foothill; and the front window of the San Leandro Apartments, also on Foothill.
“It was just repeated gun shots,” said 27-year-old Adriana Santos, who has lived across from the Oak’s market for nine years. “It was just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pause and then pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. I was asleep. It kinda sounded like a movie.”
No arrests have been made and police do not have a motive in the killing. Brandon Turner said his niece was not the target, but rather in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He is making her funeral arrangements, something he has done several times for family members over the last several years. Turner was 24 when his mother died of cancer. Nine months later, on March 5, 2008, his older brother William C. Turner, 29, was gunned down on a West Oakland street corner after coming to the aid of a woman who was being harassed. Three months later, his cousin Zaire Washington was killed. In September 2009, another cousin, 18-year-old Charles Morrow, was shot and killed. Last month, another relative, 15-year-old Hadari Askari, was shot and killed in an East Oakland housing complex. He was in the Oakland Fire Department’s summer intern program and wanted to be a firefighter.
“(Taiteanna’s killing) was not related (to the others),” said Brandon Turner, adding that revenge is not something the family is seeking. “We just want to put (her) to rest so that when her daughter is old enough to view the footage of her mom’s funeral it will reflect the person that her mother was, which was a beautiful person.”
Staff writer Matthew Artz contributed to this story. Contact Kristin J. Bender at kbender@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/kjbender.
How to help
Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland are offering up to $15,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest of the killer. Anyone with information may call police at 510-238-3821 or Crime Stoppers at 510-777-8572 or 510-777-3211.
