An American football coach who starred in the Netflix documentary Last Chance U, about struggling college teams, is in critical condition after being shot on campus, authorities in California said.
John Beam, director of athletics at Oakland’s Laney College, was hurt in a Thursday lunchtime incident at the school’s field house, its downtown sports training complex.
The Oakland police department placed the entire Laney campus on lockdown as they searched for an unidentified active shooter, who was reportedly still at large on Friday morning.
The shooting is the latest incident in an epidemic of recent gun violence afflicting school and college campuses across the US.
Beam, who has led the college’s sports program since July 2006, according to the school’s website, remained in a critical condition in hospital. He appeared with his team on the fifth and final season of the Netflix hit show in 2020, which highlights the challenges that non-elite colleges face in funding and operating a competitive sports program, and chronicling the ups and downs of Laney’s six-win, five-loss 2019 season.
The success of the series led to a two-season spin-off, Last Chance U: Basketball, in 2021.
In a statement, officials of the Peralta community college district, which oversees Laney, said it was “a frightening moment for our community”, adding that there was no longer an active threat and the campus had reopened.
“The safety of our students, faculty and staff is our highest priority, and we are working closely with police and emergency personnel to ensure the campus remains protected,” it said.
The acting Oakland police chief, John Beere, gave few additional details of the incident in a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“There was some concern that this may have been an active shooter. We responded as if it was … I can tell you right now it was not an active shooter,” he said.
Beere appealed for the public’s help in finding the suspect, a male of unknown race, wearing dark clothing including a hoodie, who was spotted fleeing the scene. He said investigators were looking into any relationship between Beam and the gunman.
“We are interviewing witnesses, we’re looking at surveillance footage,” he said.
Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, said early on Friday in a statement posted to X that the last two days had been “incredibly heavy for our city”.
“Coach Beam is a giant in Oakland – a mentor, an educator, and a lifeline for thousands of young people. For over 40 years, he has shaped leaders on and off the field, and our community is shaken alongside his family,” she said.
“This is the second shooting on an Oakland campus in two days, and it is devastating. Schools should be the safest spaces in our city. We need guns off our streets now.”
In the incident on Wednesday, a student was shot at Oakland’s Skyline high school, the Associated Press reported.
The student is in stable condition. Police say they arrested two juveniles and recovered two firearms.
According to the EveryShot tracker maintained by the advocacy group Everytown, there have been at least 460 on-campus gunfire incidents in 2025 from elementary schools to university and college campuses, including 33 in California. Nationwide, 73 of the shootings resulted in fatalities.
