On Thursday, parolee Bryan Keith Hall brought a gun into a CDCR community office in East Oakland and fatally shot a parole agent. The death of Agent Joshua Byrd, 40, marked the first on-duty killing of a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officer in seven years.
Court records show Hall has faced numerous arrests over the past 30 years across Northern California, including in Alameda, Contra Costa and Stanislaus counties. Most recently, he was sentenced Feb. 5 in the 2022 stabbing of a man in Oakland’s Lakeshore retail area.
The stabbing happened around 11:20 a.m. the morning of Nov. 21, 2022, in the 3200 block of Lakeshore Avenue, in one of the city’s busiest commercial areas. Witnesses claimed he attacked a man completely at random, plunging a knife into his lower neck before fleeing, according to court testimony.
One person saw Hall panhandling before the attack, while another person said Hall approached his vehicle and spoke incoherently. Everyone who saw the encounter said that Hall appeared to be talking to himself in the moments beforehand, court records show.
Oakland police quickly arrested Hall, and he was charged with attempted murder.
Hall remained held without bail Friday morning at the Santa Rita Jail on suspicion of first-degree murder and violating his parole, while awaiting an arraignment scheduled for Monday.
In a statement hours after Agent Byrd’s death, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the agent’s death “a heartbreaking loss.” State prisons chief Jeff Macomber lauded Byrd’s “bravery and dedication,” while adding that “our hearts are heavy.”
“Agent Byrd served with integrity and courage — and we’re forever grateful,” the statement said. “We are keeping his family in our prayers and we join the men and women of CDCR in mourning this tragedy.”
Byrd was relatively new to his role as a parole agent. He joined the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2014 and was promoted to correctional sergeant in 2020, according to the state’s corrections department. He became a parole agent in October 2024, after working at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
