‘Give This Community a Break:' Oakland Community Outraged After Shooting at Elementary School

The Oakland community is outraged and is demanding change after ongoing violence in the city.

Community advocates are pleading for everyone to put the guns down after a 12-year-old boy shot a 13-year-old student on the campus of Madison Park Elementary.

Anthony Culeman Sr, a Madison Park Elementary parent said his daughter told her she was in the cafeteria when the shooting happened.

Culeman said he urged her to go back to school despite her request to stay home.

"I think it was better for her to go to school and talk to a councilor or something instead of stay home," he explained.

Saun-Toy Latifa Trotter, a mental health therapist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, said it's important to re-establish safety and that "one of the ways to do that is letting people talk and feel."

Trotter works with schools throughout Oakland to provide mental health services and said with increased access to guns and social media, its not uncommon for even young students to have thoughts of hurting themselves or others.

"All those images combined with access, combined with a 12-year-old's developing mind, big emotions, now having lots of hormones running through and not having that impulse control," he explained.

The shooting at Madison Park Elementary is the latest in a string of violent incidents, including six homicides in the past four days.

In a press conference, worried parents, police and pastors made a plea to the entire community to be a part of the solution in stopping gun violence.

"Give this community a break, give these families a break," police chief LeRonne Armstrong said. "How much can we mourn in this city?"