The suspect in a downtown Oakland shooting Sunday that killed a reality show cast member has been identified as the victim’s older sister.
The Oakland Police Department said Vernika Dunbar, 38, of Berkeley told officers that her gun inadvertently discharged, shooting her sister Mackayla “Kash” Paige. Dunbar said she had been using the firearm to pistol-whip a woman who was brawling with Paige, according to police.
Paige, 29, of Richmond, was featured in online reality shows “Young & Reckless,” “Roommhates,” and “Now That’s Riot” on the Now That’s TV streaming network.
Dunbar and her sister were with two unidentified women on 14th Street when Paige got into a fight with an unknown woman, according to a police report. Dunbar retrieved a gun from one of the two women with them, hoping to use it to “protect and assist” Paige, the arrest report said.
“Dundbar had the firearm in her possession while trying to strike the unknown female subject. The firearm discharged and Paige was shot from Dunbar’s actions,” the arresting officer wrote.
Dunbar’s statement was consistent with surveillance video of the altercation, the arrest report said.
Graphic footage shared on social media allegedly shows the melee. Two women are punching each other when a third intervenes. The third woman, identified as Dunbar, swings a firearm several times at one of the fighters before the gun goes off. Paige collapses while the woman who’d been fighting her flees.
Oakland police officers found Paige on 14th Street at 1:30 a.m. with a gunshot wound. She was pronounced dead at a hospital, a department statement said.
Dunbar and Paige were half-sisters, according to the East Bay Times (opens in new tab).
The Alameda County district attorney’s office charged Dunbar with felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, assault with a firearm, and carrying a loaded firearm in public and a misdemeanor count of brandishing a firearm in public. She remains in jail.
On Oct. 3, a security guard at The Warfield theater in San Francisco was fatally shot by a woman during a tour involving a different corner of the world of rowdy reality TV. Shakia Vanderbilt, 32, was removed from the theater during the “Baddies USA: Chapter Three” event when a dispute ensued in which she allegedly shot and killed Ulysses Tykee Davis, a 47-year-old father of six, authorities have said.