Man charged with murder of Oakland football coach John Beam | California

A 27-year-old man was charged Monday with the murder of beloved Oakland football coach John Beam, who died last week after being shot in the head on the Northern California college campus where he worked.

Cedric Irving Jr., who has no criminal record, was charged with murder and using a firearm during the crime, Alameda County Prosecutor Ursula Jones Dickson said at a news conference.

Irving faces 50 years to life in prison if convicted. He also faces enhancement charges, alleging that he personally fired a firearm that caused serious bodily injury and that the victim was particularly vulnerable, possibly because of her age, according to the complaint filed.

The prosecutor did not discuss the possible motive for the murder.

Beam became widely recognized after appearing in the Netflix series Last Chance U five years ago. A day before the killing, Beam was attending a community forum and speaking about campus safety issues. His comments referenced Laney’s four campuses and included the field, the location where he was killed.

“Coach Beam was a true legend in Oakland, and so that’s who he was,” Jones Dickson said. “He always had the time, he always had the energy, he always had the heart for the work. He’s part of Oakland’s legacy.”

Irving is being held without bail and is expected to be arraigned Tuesday. The Alameda County public defender’s office said it had not been appointed to represent Irving and declined to comment.

Back-to-back shootings at two schools last week rocked Oakland, a city of about 400,000 across the Bay from San Francisco. A student was shot and killed at Skyline High School in Oakland on Wednesday. The student is in stable condition and two minors were in police custody.

Jones Dickson said Skyline students were on a field trip to Laney College and experienced two lockdowns in the same week. She said it was time to introduce accountability into the gun violence debate because too many young people suffer from easy access to guns.

“It’s unacceptable that we have kids in our community who are now the norm. Two days in a row they’re locked up for gun violence on campus. I don’t agree with that,” she said.

Officers arrived at Laney College before noon Thursday to find Beam shot in the head at the athletic field. He was treated at hospital, but died the next day from his injuries.

Irving was arrested at a commuter train station shortly after 3 a.m. Friday. He was carrying the gun used to shoot Beam and he admitted to shooting, according to the probable cause document.

Oakland Deputy Police Chief James Beere said the suspect went to campus for a “specific reason” but did not provide details. “This is a very targeted incident,” he said at a news conference Friday.

Beere did not say how the two men knew each other, but said Irving was known to hang around the Laney campus. Irving’s brother told the San Francisco Chronicle that Irving lost his job as a security guard after an altercation and was facing eviction from his home.

Irving’s brother also spoke to the San Francisco Standard and said that Irving was a member of the football and track teams and later attended Laney College.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement: “Coach’s Beam’s legacy is not measured in championships or statistics. It is measured by the thousands of young people he believed in, mentored and refused to give up on, including my nephew, while he was at Skyline High School. He gave the young people of Oakland their best chance, and he never stopped fighting for them.”

Lee also said Beam’s shooting was the second on an Oakland campus in two days.

Beam joined Laney College in 2004 as running backs coach and became head coach in 2012, winning two league titles. According to his biography posted on the college’s website, at least 20 of his players have joined the NFL.

Beam previously worked at Skyline High School, where Irving had played football, but after that Beam left for another job. Beam led the team to 15 Oakland Athletic League titles from the 1980s to the early 2000s.

There have been at least 469 campus shooting incidents in 2025, from elementary schools to college and university campuses, according to the EveryShot tracker maintained by the advocacy group Everytown.