Two suspects arrested in late-night shooting near East Bay elementary school

OAKLEY — Police arrested two suspects in a shooting early Monday that led a man’s head to be grazed by a bullet near an elementary school.

The suspects are accused of leading police on a highway chase that stretched to Orinda — another Contra Costa County city about 34 miles to the west — before they were apprehended.

Authorities did not name the male suspects, who are minors, or the victim, described as a young man.

Police responded at 1:08 a.m. Monday to a report of a possible kidnapping and shooting at East Cypress Road and Frank Hengel Way. The intersection is near Iron Horse Elementary School in a residential area of Oakley.

The two suspects had been picked up in a car at Cypress Grove Park about a half-mile away, but they became angry when the other three people in the vehicle would not take them to buy marijuana, police said.

The eventual male gunshot victim exited the car, at which point the suspects held the other two victims — a woman and a minor girl — at gunpoint and forced them to drive, according to police.

After driving down to the area near the school, one of the two female victims refused to continue. Police said the suspects forced both remaining victims out of the vehicle and took it over.

The suspects then spotted the man, who had pursued them on foot, and fired a gun at him through the car’s windshield, police said. The man suffered a grazing wound to the head and was later treated for injuries at a local hospital.

Responding police officers conducted a search for the fleeing suspects and discovered they were speeding down Highway 4.

Officers pursued the suspects to Orinda, arresting them after the vehicle they were driving became “disabled” while going westbound on Highway 24, police said.

Both suspects are being held in juvenile hall on suspicion of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and carjacking.