OAKLAND — The man suspected of fatally shooting Laney College’s John Beam appeared strangely fixated on the legendary football coach and set out for the downtown campus last week to find and kill him, multiple sources said Monday.
Cedric Irving Jr., 27, now faces enough crimes to put him in prison for at least 50 years to life, if convicted of one of the Bay Area’s highest-profile killings in recent memory. But four days after the slaying, it remained unclear exactly how Irving knew Beam, a storied figure in the region’s sports history and a valued community leader for Oakland’s student athletes.
The case, which has received national attention, led the Alameda County District Attorney on Monday to announce she would seek to re-establish mandatory minimum sentences for gun-related convictions — a significant shift in the county’s prosecutorial policies.
On Monday, prosecutors charged Irving with murder and an enhancement alleging he personally discharged a firearm, along with additional enhancements for allegedly targeting a “vulnerable” victim and causing great bodily harm, court records show.
Cedric Irving Jr., 27, of Oakland, after his arrest on Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in connection with the fatal shooting of Laney College Athletic Director John Beam. (Courtesy of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office)
As he confessed to the allegedly premeditated killing, Irving accused the coach of putting “witchcraft” on him, multiple sources said. He was then booked straight into jail without undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. Authorities say they recovered the suspected murder weapon from a backpack when Irving was arrested Friday morning and that the firearm was registered to him.
Irving allegedly shot 66-year-old Beam in the head shortly before noon Thursday, inside Laney’s Field House, an athletic facility housing the college’s administrative offices and other facilities near Fifth Avenue and East Eighth Street, police said. He was rushed to a hospital, placed on life support and pronounced dead at 10 a.m. Friday.
Hours earlier, Irving was arrested around 4 a.m. at the San Leandro BART station, following an intense manhunt that involved a huge police presence on campus.
In an interview with detectives after his arrest, “Irving admitted that he was the person that shot John Beam,” according to a police affidavit that was filed in court. The Skyline High School graduate, police say, was known to loiter around the Laney College campus.
The homicide came a day after the longtime coach and athletics director — who garnered national fame five years ago from the Netflix show “Last Chance U” — raised concerns to Laney leaders about safety on the college district’s four campuses, including at the Field House where he was mortally wounded.
Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson pauses during a press conference at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. Cedric Irving Jr., 27, has been charged in the fatal shooting of former football coach John Beam. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The campus killing led Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson to announce Monday she would seek to re-establish mandatory minimum sentencing for misdemeanor cases involving gun possession — a direct response to Beam’s death and a separate, non-fatal shooting last week at Skyline High School in the Oakland hills, where a 15-year-old boy was shot, allegedly by classmates in a campus bathroom.
Specifically, Jones Dickson said, cases that otherwise would be misdemeanors may be upgraded to felonies, with defendants required to spend a certain amount of time in custody.
“There are way too many guns on the street, in hands where they shouldn’t be,” Jones Dickson said. “And a lot of those hands, unfortunately (belong to) young people.”
Prosecutors were notified of the policy change on Monday, which is a stark shift from Jones Dickson’s predecessor, Pamela Price, who in 2023 circulated a memo instructing her prosecutors to use probation terms as the “presumptive offer” in all cases where the defendant was legally eligible for them.
Laney College assistant football coach Toni Pole and former Laney College track star Bibiana Enriquez, from left, visit a memorial for former Laney College football coach John Beam outside the school’s athletic facility on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. Beam was fatally shot at the facility on Nov. 13. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Jones Dickson said that moving forward, her office will week 90-day jail sentence for misdemeanor gun cases, 180-day sentences for felony possession charges, and 16 months in prison for people with felony convictions who are caught with guns.
Jones Dickson, meanwhile, offered few details Monday about the suspect’s possible motive. Irving, she said was not a student at Laney College or play for one of the school’s athletics programs at the time of Beam’s killing. But the school’s student newspaper, The Peralta Citizen, reported Monday that Irving had been enrolled at Laney some time in the past.
She pushed broadly for school campuses to have more robust security, but declined to elaborate what that might look like.
“We continue to pray for his family,” Jones Dickson said of Beam, noting that her son had once received positive encouragement from the coach at a football camp years ago. “We stand with them in any way we can support them.”
Irving is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, with his first court appearance set for Tuesday, records show. Court records indicate he has no prior felony convictions.
Staff writer Harry Harris contributed to this report.
A thank-you sign at a memorial for former Laney College football coach John Beam outside the school’s athletic facility on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. Beam was fatally shot at the facility on Nov. 13. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)