Berkeley police have arrested two women after a shooting at the Maudelle Miller Shirek Community apartments on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: Resources for Community Development
Prosecutors have charged an Oakland woman with attempted murder and several gun felonies after police say she tried to shoot another woman at a South Berkeley apartment building in January.
Police wrote in court filings that China Omar, 26, and a 23-year-old woman from the San Diego County city of Vista had gotten into a fight in San Francisco with two other women, then followed them to the Maudelle Miller Shirek Community apartments on Adeline Street where one of them lived in the early hours of Jan. 17.
The Vista woman forced her way into the apartment, gun in hand, and Omar followed soon after, police said. Both left the unit, but only to ready a car parked nearby for their eventual getaway, police said.
Omar and the Vista woman confronted the two others in a fourth-floor hallway. By this point, one of the victims had grabbed a kitchen knife, and according to police said, “We are both going to jail or we are both going to die, today, now.”
Omar, who had taken her companion’s gun, shot at the knife-wielding woman’s head once from 10 or 15 feet away but missed, police said. She and the Vista woman took off, with Omar firing again at the woman with the knife, police said.
The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office charged Omar with attempted murder and four felony gun crimes on Feb. 17, according to court records. But it would be another eight days before police took her into custody, tracking her cell phone and using automated license plate readers to locate the car she was riding in at the time.
At the time of her arrest, Oakland police were looking for Omar and a different 23-year-old woman who they say carjacked an Uber driver outside a West MacArthur Boulevard motel on Feb. 20. Prosecutors charged Omar and that woman with carjacking.
Berkeley police arrested the Vista woman on Feb. 3. Prosecutors charged her with felony burglary and misdemeanor gun crimes, but have since filed a notice that they intend to file an amended complaint against her.
Omar has been in custody without bail at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin since her arrest. The Vista woman was released on her own recognizance on Feb. 5.
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