Marshall Prosser III, 22, was shot and killed in Oakland's Sobrante Park neighborhood on the evening of Tuesday, August 28, 2012. The Oakland Police Department investigated, and his death was the city's 80th homicide of the year.
The shooting happened at about 7 p.m. at the intersection of Bergedo Drive and Robledo Drive, where residents had set up a portable basketball hoop on the street.
According to police, Prosser was standing and talking with a group of people when a gunman walked up and opened fire on him. Officer Eric Milina said afterward that Prosser "was the target." No one else in the group was hurt. The gunman fled, possibly in a car, and Prosser was taken to a hospital, where he died later that night.
Investigators said Prosser lived in another part of Oakland, and in the days after the shooting they were still trying to learn why he had been in Sobrante Park that evening and what led someone to single him out. Police did not release a motive or a description of the shooter. Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information about the killing.
News reports identified him by his full name, Marshall Prosser III. Beyond his age and the fact that he lived in Oakland, little about his life was reported at the time. A different man named Marshall Prosser, who was 45, was shot and killed in East Oakland in September 2018; that is a separate case.
Sobrante Park is a small residential neighborhood in the far southeastern corner of Oakland, near the San Leandro border, made up mostly of single-family homes on quiet curving streets. A basketball hoop set up in the street, with neighbors gathered around it on a late-summer evening, means that many people were likely nearby when the shots were fired.
Oakland was one of the most violent large cities in California in those years. The city recorded 148 homicides in 2006 and more than 100 in most years through 2013, and its police department solved far fewer of them than the statewide average. In 2010 and 2011, Oakland police cleared only about 30 percent of the city's homicides.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Marshall Prosser III could be found in news archives or public records. More than 14 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. The Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Oakland from 2008 through 2017, lists the case as open with no arrest. Anyone who was at Bergedo and Robledo drives that evening, or who knows why Prosser was in Sobrante Park, may hold information that matters. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Oakland Police Department Homicide Section at (510) 238-3821 or the homicide tip line at (510) 238-7950, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of Oakland at (510) 777-8572.
