Suspect arrested in shooting of ‘Last Chance U’ football coach John Beam

OAKLAND, Calif. — Authorities arrested a 27-year-old Oakland man early Friday in the Laney College campus shooting of legendary Oakland football coach John Beam, multiple sources told this news outlet.

The arrest, which the sources said happened at about 3 a.m. at the San Leandro BART station, caps an intense manhunt for the suspected shooter of the longtime coach, who gained national fame in 2020 when his Laney College Eagles football team was featured on the Netflix show “Last Chance U.”

The suspect was identified by multiple sources as Cedric Irving Jr., who was spotted by an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy who recognized him from surveillance footage.

In interviews with police, he allegedly made admissions about his involvement in the shooting and said he knew Beam, but it was unclear to what extent, the sources said. Irving graduated from Skyline High School in Oakland in the late 2010s, where he played football and ran track.

The gun believed to be used in the shooting was recovered, according to sources.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee confirmed the arrest in a statement issued later Friday morning.

“I’m grateful to the Oakland Police Department and our dedicated law enforcement partners for their swift work in making an arrest in the shooting of Coach Beam,” Lee said. “This arrest is a testament to the effective collaboration and dedication of our law enforcement community.”

Beam was hospitalized after the shooting, which took place just before noon Thursday inside Laney’s Field House, which houses the college’s administrative offices and other facilities near Fifth Avenue and East Eighth Street. He was severely wounded and hospitalized in critical condition, multiple sources said.

The shooting happened less than 24 hours after another school shooting across Oakland at Skyline High School, where a 15-year-old boy was shot in a bathroom after a confrontation. Two teenagers — a 15-year-old a 16-year-old — were later detained in the shooting, while investigators recovered two semi-automatic firearms from around the scene.

Motives for both shootings, which authorities say are unrelated, remained unclear Friday.

Beam himself coached football at Skyline High School for 22 years — the vast majority of them as the school’s head coach, where he garnered a legendary reputation while winning league championships nearly every year from the late 1980s through early 2000s.

He left the school in 2004 and went to Laney College, where he continued to find success — most notably winning the 2018 California Community College Athletic Association title. He coached at the college until 2024, when he left the sidelines to focus on his job as the college’s athletic director.