OAKLAND, Calif. — Laney College football coach John Beam, who was featured in the Netflix series "Last Chance U", has died after being shot on campus, the Oakland Police Department said Friday, and a suspect has been arrested.
Beam's death a day after he was shot shook the community with scores holding a vigil outside the hospital before he died and remembering him as someone who always tried to help anyone.
Skyline football coach John Beam is drenched Nov. 25, 2000, after Skyline High School beats Fremont High School 27-18 during the Silver Bowl at Laney College in Oakland, Calif.
Oakland Assistant Chief James Beere said the suspect went on campus for a "specific reason" but did not elaborate on what that was.
"This was a very targeted incident," Beere said, adding that the suspect and Beam knew each other and although they weren't close, the coach was "open to helping everybody in our community."
Beere did not say how they knew each other but said the suspect was known to loiter around the Laney campus. The suspect had played football at a high school where Beam had worked but not at the time the coach was employed there.
The suspect was taken into custody without an altercation and a gun was recovered, the assistant chief added. Charges were still pending.
Law enforcement work the scene after a shooting at Laney College in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Authorities credited technology, specifically cameras at the college campus, private residences and on public transit, with helping arrest the suspect, who was not named.
Police said the shooting happened Thursday before noon, and officers arrived to find Beam shot. Few other details were available. It was the second shooting in two days at a school in Oakland.
The Netflix docuseries focused on athletes at junior colleges striving to turn their lives around, and Beam's Laney College Eagles starred in the 2020 season. Beam gambled on players nobody else wanted. He developed deep relationships with his players while fielding a team that regularly competed for championships.
Beam's family said in a statement that he was a "loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, coach, mentor and friend."
"Our hearts are full from the outpouring of love," the family said, asking for privacy.
Piedmont Police Chief Fred Shavies, who previously served as a deputy chief in the Oakland Police Department said he was a friend, mentee and long time admirer of Beam.
"John was so much more than a coach," he said. "He was a father figure to thousands of not only men but young women in our community."
Flowers are seen Friday on campus one day after a shooting at Laney College in Oakland, Calif.
Hundreds of people held a vigil outside the hospital where he "fought" as he taught so many to do over the last 40 years, he added.
Shavies said he met Beam when he was in the eighth grade and he supported him after Shavies lost his father in high school, calling him "an absolutely incredible human being." He asked how did Beam leave his mark on so many people "with just 24 hours in a day, right?"
Two of Beam's former players — brothers Nahshon and Rejzohn Wright, now in the NFL with the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints — posted on social media after the shooting.
"You mean the world to me," Rejzohn Wright said in a post with a photo of Beam.
His brother shared a photo of the coach alongside a broken heart emoji.
Mayor Barbara Lee described Beam as a "giant" and a mentor, educator and lifeline for young people.
"For over 40 years, he has shaped leaders on and off the field, and our community is shaken alongside his family," Lee said.
Beam, who was serving as athletic director, joined Laney College in 2004 as a running backs coach and became head coach in 2012, winning two league titles. According to his biography on the college's website, 20 of his players have gone on to the NFL.
"The Peralta community is devastated by his shooting and deeply concerned for his well-being. We are stunned and heartbroken that such violence has touched our campus," Mark Johnson a spokesperson for Peralta Community College District said in an e-mailed statement on Beam's current medical status.
Beam's shooting came a day after a student was shot at Oakland's Skyline High School. The student is in stable condition. Beam had previously worked at Skyline High School and the suspect had played football there but after Beam had already left for another job.
A list of deadly shootings on college campuses in the US
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including a forensics van, are stationed outside of Florida State University’s student union building April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., after a shooting. Two people were killed and at least six others were wounded. The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect's mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon. Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, though rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school. Here is a look at other deadly shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent decades.
Michigan State University students embrace Feb. 14, 2023, at The Rock on the East Lansing, Mich., campus. A 43-year-old gunman fired inside an academic building and the student union, killing three students and injuring five others. He later killed himself miles away from the campus while being confronted by police. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
Amanda Perez, left, is comforted Dec. 6, 2023, by fellow student Alejandro Barron after a shooting on the University of Nevada campus in Las Vegas. A 67-year-old former business professor, whose applications to teach at UNLV were rejected, opened fire in the building housing the university's business school, killing three professors and badly wounding a fourth. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police outside the building.
A University of Virginia football player speaks Nov. 19, 2022, during a memorial service for three slain University of Virginia football players Lavel Davis Jr., D'Sean Perry and Devin Chandler at John Paul Jones Arena at the school in Charlottesville, Va. A student and former member of the school’s football team shot and killed the players on a charter bus as they returned from a field trip, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured. Two other students also were wounded on the campus. The shooter pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges.
Authorities gather Oct. 9, 2015, outside a student dormitory in Flagstaff, Ariz., after an early morning fight between two groups of college students escalated into gunfire, authorities said. Just weeks into his freshman year, a student walked onto the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff and opened fire. One student was killed and three others wounded. The shooter later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Hannah Miles, a student at Umqua Community College, speaks with reporters Oct. 1, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. A 26-year-old man opened fire on his writing class, killing his instructor and eight other people at the school, then killed himself. Miles said she was in the classroom next door to the shooting, which also wounded nine others.
A woman looks at bullet holes May 24, 2014, in a window of IV Deli Mark, where a mass shooting took place near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, in the Isla Vista beach community. A 22-year-old college student frustrated over sexual rejections fatally stabbed or shot six students near the school and injured several others before he killed himself.
Santa Monica College students Gaby Contreras, left, and Andrea Garcia leave flowers at a memorial for those killed in a shooting at the school in Santa Monica, Calif. A deadly act of domestic violence at home turned public June 7, 2013, when a 23-year-old man left after killing his father and older brother, carjacked a woman and shot at other vehicles. He then entered the campus, where he previously was enrolled as a student, and opened fire, killing four more people before he was fatally shot by police in the school's library.
Maria Campomanes and her daughter Maelauni leave flowers for victims outside of Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. A former nursing student fatally shot seven people April 2, 2012, at the small private college in East Oakland, California. He was given seven consecutive life sentences and died in prison in 2019.
Mourners console each other after placing flowers at a memorial at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. A 27-year-old former student shot and killed five people and wounded more than 20 others at the school Feb. 14, 2008, before killing himself.
Students gather on the campus of Virginia Tech for a candlelight vigil April 17, 2007, a day after a shooting, in Blacksburg, Va. In the deadliest shooting at a U.S. college, a 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus. More than two dozen others were wounded. The gunman then killed himself.
Smoke rises from a sniper's gun Aug. 1, 1966, as he fires at people from the tower of the University of Texas administration building in Austin, Texas. A Marine-trained sniper opened fire from atop the 27-story clock tower in the heart of the university's flagship campus in one of the nation's first mass shootings. He killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others before authorities shot and killed him.
