{"id":445717,"date":"2026-08-28T02:40:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T02:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445717\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T02:40:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T02:40:56","slug":"bakersfield-city-council-to-discuss-gun-gang-violence-prevention-following-independence-high-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445717\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakersfield City Council to discuss gun, gang violence prevention following Independence High shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Bakersfield City Council is expected to hold a workshop to update the public on the city’s ongoing violence prevention efforts in light of the fatal shooting at Independence High School<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is unknown as of Thursday when the workshop will take place, but city officials told 17 News it will be brought to a future City Council meeting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Watch ‘After Sunrise’ on KGET+; Click to learn how to get KGET+ on your smart TV devices\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The Council briefly discussed the city’s efforts to reduce gun and gang violence during its Wednesday meeting.<\/p>\n

Council member Andrae Gonzales suggested having a workshop related to the city’s violence intervention work at a future Council meeting. This is meant to help the community better understand the work the city has already been engaged in, Gonzales said.<\/p>\n

Council member Eric Arias agreed, saying many Bakersfield residents have been expressing concerns about safety in the community following the shooting that occurred during a football game at Independence High School.<\/p>\n

City Manager Christian Clegg acknowledged the ongoing large conversation about safety among the community.<\/p>\n

“I would first say that any act of violence, any tragedy, loss of life is so unfortunate and we are very saddened by the incident that occurred last week,” Clegg said.<\/p>\n

He said Bakersfield has seen significant progress in reducing violence overall and that the city will continue to work for improvements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Clegg, the city saw over a 70% reduction<\/a> in homicides and shootings from 2021 to 2024, mainly through the efforts of the Bakersfield Police Department, Office of Violence Intervention and Prevention and community partners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2021, there were 60 homicides and 17 of those were related to gang violence. But in 2025, there were 33 homicides — three of those were gang violence-related, Clegg said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bakersfield police asking for community’s video evidence in Independence HS shooting\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The shooting at Independence is the first and only gang violence-related homicide so far this year, according to Clegg. Bakersfield saw 10 homicides in 2026 as of Aug. 27.<\/p>\n

“It is remarkable the reduction in gang violence,” said Clegg. “I would argue that our community, from a gun violence standpoint, has become very safe.”<\/p>\n

The city has still been struggling with chronic low level “quality-of-life” crimes and this is a top issue for the Council, Clegg said.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Bakersfield City Council is expected to hold a workshop to update the public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,1610,176570,2323,174545,176572,176571],"class_list":["post-445717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-city-council","tag-clegg","tag-council","tag-independence-high-school","tag-independence-hs","tag-the-bakersfield-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}