Oakland Boy Killed By A Knock At The Door

via SFGate

When someone knocked on the door of his East Oakland home, 16-year-old Phillip Wright thought nothing of going to see who it was.
Before he could even open the security-gated front door, however, someone fired several shots through it at 5:10 p.m. Thursday, mortally wounding the Oakland High School junior. Hit the yellow link for the entire story.
Phillip was pronounced dead at Highland Hospital in Oakland, the victim of an assailant who didn't care who was on the other side of the door, police said. "It doesn't seem that this boy was the intended victim," said Officer Jeff Thomason, a Police Department spokesman.

The owner of the home, Phillip's grandfather Lee Oliver, 47, said he believed the killer was gunning for a friend of the boy's who was involved in a "botched robbery" last week. Someone fired a shot through a window Monday night, Oliver said. After Phillip was shot, Oliver cradled his grandson in his arms and told him, "I love you," he said Friday night. "You must be a cold-hearted person - you must not even have a heart," Oliver said of the killer. "You must have no feeling, no love, nothing."

Thomason said many other people live at the home on the 9400 block of Oscar Avenue, and that "anybody in the house" could have responded when the killer knocked. The attacker apparently waited until voices could be heard near the door before opening fire, police said. No arrests have been made. The shooting left four large bullet holes in the front door, and several rounds were lodged in the walls inside. One bullet ended up in a couch.

Neighbors and friends said Phillip dreamed of going to college and traveling the world. The boy was a volunteer intern at the East Oakland Boxing Association, where he helped youths learn life skills. He enjoyed gardening and boxing, said intern supervisor Gerard Priester. "He just led by example," Priester said. "He was just a stand-up kid. He wasn't a follower. He was a guy who could capture anybody's heart." Frank Rose, an East Oakland community activist, said Phillip "had a sense of humor you wouldn't believe for a young man. He had a future." A neighbor of Phillip's, Deborah Papillon, 53, called him "a very good kid. He was very respectable."

The boy's peach-stuccoed home is located off Edes Avenue east of Interstate 880, not far from the Oakland Coliseum. "You have to be careful who you open the door to and who you let into your house," Papillon said. She told a reporter who interviewed her through her security gate, "I was skeptical about opening the door for you." Another neighbor, Jasmin Cambra, 13, asked incredulously, "It's not safe to open your door?"
Her father, Richard Cambra, 59, said he heard the gunfire from earlier in the week. "It looks like whoever it is, is looking for someone inside the house," he said.

That target, officials said, was almost certainly not Phillip. The boy "was known to be helpful and quiet," said Troy Flint, spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District. "He was a very well-liked student, not the type that anyone would expect to be caught up in this type of activity." The only blemish on his record at school was a notation that his cell phone went off once in class, Flint said. "The sentiment is he was caught in the crossfire, and he was indeed not the intended or real target of this aggression," Flint said.