Two people were killed and five others were wounded in a mass shooting inside EZ’s Lounge, a downtown Oakland nightclub, earlier this month.

Now, a recently surfaced video is raising questions about whether one of the weapons used in the shooting had been modified in a manner that made it more lethal.

A 45-second clip posted on X the day after the March 7 shooting shows surveillance footage from inside the club. In the video, from a user named “West Coast Gang Wars,” a fight between at least two men escalates in a narrow corridor crowded with people. About 27 seconds in, both appear to draw guns and open fire, sending bystanders scrambling.

Over the next four seconds, one of the men, crouched in a fetal position on the floor, appears to fire multiple rounds in succession — far faster than a typical semi-automatic pistol is capable of. The spray of gunfire appears to be aimlessly directed toward the crowd that ran away.

The footage suggests the handgun may have been modified to fire automatically, allowing it to discharge multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. Such weapons are illegal under federal law and in California.

Lt. Gabriel Urquiza, who oversees the Oakland Police Department’s real-time operations center, confirmed that the social media clip depicts the March 7 shooting and appears to show a modified gun.

“It’s pretty clear that it was a fully automatic weapon,” Urquiza said.

Authorities have not confirmed whether the shooter shown in the video is among the seven victims. An OPD spokesperson said the department’s investigation is ongoing.

Still, the footage raises questions about how widely such modified firearms are circulating in Oakland — and whether their use increases the risk of mass casualties.

Converting a semi-automatic pistol to a fully automatic weapon is relatively simple, experts say
Auto sears, also known as machine gun conversion devices, can be easily installed on semi-automatic Glock pistols. Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

One of the most common methods for converting a semi-automatic pistol into a fully automatic weapon involves an automatic sear, a small plastic or metal device that prevents the trigger mechanism from resetting after each shot. That means a single pull or hold of the trigger can empty an entire magazine of bullets in just a few seconds.

Auto sears are relatively easy to install on Glock-style pistols, according to Urquiza. They’re also inexpensive and easy to obtain — they can be made at home using a 3D printer or purchased online, sometimes for less than $20, from overseas manufacturers or on the black market. On the street, sears are usually called “switches” or “chips.” Law enforcement often refers to them as machine gun conversion devices, or MCDs.

Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president at Giffords Law Center, a national law firm focused on gun policy, said his organization has worked with states like Minnesota to sue Glock, the leading manufacturer of semi-automatic pistols, for “designing, manufacturing, and selling products that are far and away the easiest pistols to illegally convert into machine guns.”

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the city of Philadelphia, represented by Giffords, accused Glock of promoting illegal conversion devices. The complaint alleges that the manufacturer used social media to advertise “how ‘fun’ it is to possess a fully automatic Glock” and targeted teens and young men in its marketing campaigns.

“Oftentimes, when we see innocent bystanders killed in incidents, it turns out that these fully automatic pistols were being used,” Skaggs said. “If you’re at an event where there’s a big crowd, a fight breaks out, and somebody pulls out a gun like that … it’s going to increase the likelihood that a bystander is killed, that more people will get shot.”

Glock did not respond to a request for comment.

Sgt. Ryan Swetavage, a firearms expert with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and leader of the agency’s SWAT team, said machine gun conversion devices aren’t intended to improve a shooter’s accuracy; rather, they “increase the rate of fire.” (The sheriff’s office is not handling the investigation into the Oakland nightclub shooting.)

“It’s a little unsettling because we don’t have that same capability,” said Swetavage. “Even on our SWAT team, we don’t carry automatic firearms, but there’s a good reason for it.”

Fully automatic weapons are heavily regulated and effectively illegal for most people to own due to their increased potential to injure and kill people. Neither OPD nor the sheriff’s office issues fully automatic weapons to officers.

In fact, experts say auto sears may reduce a shooter’s accuracy because of the increased recoil, the force of a shot that pushes a pistol backward and upward in a shooter’s hand. Urquiza said that may help explain the number of victims in the nightclub shooting.

“In this particular situation, the lethality was increased because of the proximity and the fact that there was a group of people in an enclosed space,” he said.

More dangerous firearms are showing up in Oakland cases
The Oakland Police Department has increasingly recovered more sophisticated firearms from crime scenes over the past decade. Credit: Amir Aziz/The Oaklandside

Throughout his 11 years at OPD, Urquiza said the quality of firearms officers have recovered from crime scenes has evolved drastically.

Roughly a decade ago, he said, officers sometimes encountered makeshift weapons assembled with tape. Newer models, such as later-generation Glock pistols, were “extremely rare.”

That began to change around 2020, when police started recovering more modern firearms, often equipped with extended magazines and, in some cases, conversion devices.

“We were seeing juveniles armed with high-quality, relatively new Glock firearms with extended magazines,” Urquiza said. “They just became more common.”

Most firearms recovered by OPD from crime scenes are semi-automatic, meaning they fire one bullet at a time when the trigger is pulled. However, according to Urquiza, fully automatic weapons aren’t rare in Oakland. “They’re not an uncommon thing to find on the street,” he said.

The sheriff’s office has observed similar trends, though Swetavage said the prevalence of auto sears may have declined in recent years, possibly due to increased regulation and litigation.

“Because of the efforts of some of our federal law enforcement partners, they’re a little bit more challenging to acquire,” Swetavage said.

Many firearms used in crimes in Oakland are stolen or trafficked from other states with less restrictive gun laws. Some have been traced as far away as Atlanta, Urquiza said.

Others are so-called “ghost guns,” privately assembled firearms without serial numbers, which are difficult or impossible to trace.

“It’s very, very rare to recover a firearm from a crime that’s actually registered to that person who used it,” Urquiza said.

OPD has not made any arrests in connection with the EZ’s Lounge shooting. Authorities identified the two deaths as 33-year-old San Pablo teacher Latetia Bobo and 25-year-old Markise Martin. The East Bay Times reported that the five survivors of the shooting “are expected to live.”

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