‘This is not supposed to happen’: Mother of man fatally shot by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies decries killing

SAN LEANDRO — The unarmed man fatally shot by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies early Monday morning was an East Bay musician known for frequently performing at a Berkeley Irish pub, his mother told this news outlet.

Anthony Anderson, 40, died when two sheriff’s deputies opened fire on him outside a house in the Fairmont Terrace neighborhood between San Leandro and Hayward, according to his mother, Kristina Anderson. She confirmed her son’s death after having been notified by the sheriff’s coroner’s bureau. The agency has yet to release the slain man’s name amid a “press hold” on his identity.

A day after the shooting, Kristina Anderson decried the killing and questioned why deputies shot her son, despite the fact he was unarmed.

“I can’t believe this is the country I am living in,” Kristina Anderson said. “Because this is not supposed to happen to anyone.”

Little has been released about the shooting from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, which did not publicly acknowledge the killing for more than 12 hours after Anthony Anderson’s death.

The first public notice of it came shortly before noon Monday — more than eight hours after the deadly encounter — when the California Attorney General’s Office issued a press release announcing that the state’s Department of Justice was investigating the incident under Assembly Bill 1506. Such investigations only take place when a person killed by law enforcement is not armed.

The sheriff’s office later said its dispatch received a call at 3:19 a.m. from a man who claimed to have a gun and “expressed his intent to harm others, and requested to speak with law enforcement.”

At some point after deputies arrived to the 16000 block of Selborne Drive, in the hills above Interstate 580, and the man came out of a residence “and presented an immediate threat to officers,” prompting the deputies to open fire at him, the agency’s statement said.

A neighbor, Greg Croft, 66, later recalled waking up early Monday morning to a commotion across the street from his house and hearing someone yell, “Hands up! Hands up!” he told this news outlet. Seconds later, he heard five gunshots.

Later on Monday, Croft recalled seeing a large tent standing in the middle of the roadway while numerous law enforcement officers investigated the scene. On Tuesday, all that remained was a few pools of blood in the street.

A sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. Roberto Morales, declined to offer any further details Tuesday about what led to the shooting, or about the nature of the “immediate threat” the man allegedly posed to deputies.

The two deputies who fired on Anthony Anderson are on paid administrative leave, Morales said, in accordance with the sheriff’s policies. Morales declined to release the names of those officers, as well as how long they had been with the department.

On Tuesday, Kristina Anderson remembered her son as “an incredible person,” and a “fabulous trumpet player,” who had a habit of “bringing people together by playing” live music sets. He would often host performances and jam sessions on Thursday nights at The Starry Plough Pub, a decades-old Irish bar on Shattuck Avenue known for hosting local live music performances, even sets by Green Day, Counting Crows and The Brothers Comatose.

“This is already reverberating through the music community unbelievably,” said Kristina Anderson, herself a professional classical violinist of more than four decades. “No one can believe this kind of thing can happen in a civilized society. But guess what, it did.”

Born in San Francisco, he spent part of his childhood in Oregon before returning to the Bay Area and attending Berkeley High School, playing in the school’s jazz band. Often, he and his friends would gather on Sunday evenings for “church” — weekly jam sessions where “everyone was included and, boy, that house really rocked,” Kristina Anderson said.

“Anthony was incredible, wonderful, not a mean bone in his body,” she added.

Kristina Anderson said her son had been living at the house on Selborne Drive, and did not know Anthony to own any firearms. She also criticized the sheriff’s office for its lack of transparency on the killing, suggesting it was “so they could get their own stories straight.”

“He just was having problems with depression, and he was reaching out for help,” Kristina Anderson said. “And the help he got was to get killed.”

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.