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No Murder Charges For Suspect In Oakland First Friday Shooting

OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- The suspect in a shooting shortly after the popular First Friday event in downtown Oakland on Friday night was charged Tuesday with six counts of assault with a semi-automatic firearm and one count each of carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a loaded firearm in a city.

However, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office didn't file any charges against 19-year-old Donald Parks Jr. for the shooting of 18-year-old Kiante Campbell of Oakland, who died in the incident in the 2000 block of Telegraph Avenue around 10:49 p.m. Friday.

Oakland police arrested Parks in East Oakland around 7:30 p.m. Saturday on suspicion of murder for Campbell's death, but district attorney spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said her office didn't charge Parks with murder because it decided to charge only "what we can prove with the evidence that we have."

The First Friday event attracts large crowds to downtown Oakland the first Friday of every month and is an offshoot of Art Murmur, a gallery walk that occurs earlier on the same night.

Oakland police Officer Jason Andersen said in a probable cause statement filed in Alameda County Superior Court that Parks "was positively identified as the suspect who fired multiple rounds into a crowd of people" and a surveillance camera captured him "engaged in the act of shooting."

Andersen said that after Parks was arrested he "confessed to the shooting."

Oakland police said that apart from Campbell, three other people were wounded in the shooting and were treated at local hospitals for injuries not considered life-threatening.

But the criminal complaint against Parks lists six victims, not including Campbell, apparently indicating that authorities believe he fired at additional people who weren't wounded.

Parks was arraigned on the eight felony charges against him at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland Tuesday afternoon.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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