OAKLAND — The murder case against a 19-year-old Union City man has advanced past a preliminary hurdle, but the judge who made the order questioned whether prosecutors would be able to prove whether he was truly an active participant in a shooting where none of the other active participants have been charged.
Jeremiah Crawford is charged with murder in the Aug. 25, 2025 killing of Tony Norman, a 68-year-old Kaiser security guard who was walking to his Oakland home when a stray bullet struck him. Police believe the shooter was a passenger in a Nissan, aiming at another vehicle on the 700 block of 17th Street in Oakland, and that Norman was simply an unlucky victim of a conflict he had nothing to do with.
Crawford is the only suspect to face charges in Norman’s death, after police identified him from surveillance footage as the Nissan’s driver. Testimony at the preliminary hearing established he got behind the wheel roughly 20 minutes before the shooting, later identified himself as the driver from a footage that police showed him, and attempted to report the Nissan stolen hours after the shooting.
Despite all this, Judge Thomas Stevens said it was difficult to say definitively that Crawford played an active role in the killing. He said surveillance footage could indicate that Crawford “followed” the victim’s vehicle and his attempt to report it stolen could indicate a guilty conscious. But he said the fact that the Nissan paused for one minute, which “leads to an inference of surprise and lack of intent.”
“He falsely reported that it was a stolen car. Why would you do that?” Stevens continued. “One inference is he’s scared. He’s 19 years old and he didn’t know what to do or say because this whole incident was a shock to him and he did not share the intent. Another inference is he knew it all along and he was scared of being found culpable of this plan that he was involved in so he lied about it.”
In the end, Stevens said he’d let a jury decide, but didn’t want to speculate how jurors would interpret the facts.
Since Crawford’s arrest last October, his defense attorney has tried and failed repeatedly to get him out of jail. A bail motion by Deputy Public Defender Amy Yellen describes him as a “19-year-old kid” who had recently graduated high school with a 3.13 GPA and received trophies for participation in youth sports, like the Oakland Junior Raiders. Crawford was working for FedEx at the time he was charged, and has no prior arrests, Yellen said in court.
Crawford remains jailed without bail and is next due in court on May 11.