Features

Police Raid Fails to Nab Hollis By MATTHEW ARTZ

Tuesday August 02, 2005

About a dozen Berkeley police officers raided a Vallejo home Saturday in search of Christopher Hollis, the man police say shot the 19-year-old Berkeley woman who was also his friend. 

The raid, executed in conjunction with Vallejo police, failed to locate Hollis, who remains at large, said Berkeley Police Public Information Officer Joe Okies. 

Okies declined to comment on leads that led police to the Vallejo residence and Vallejo police did not return phone calls Monday. 

Vallejo Police Lt. Jim O’Connell told the Vallejo Times-Herald that a car associated with Hollis was at the residence earlier on Saturday, but Hollis was not inside. 

Four people believed to be friends of Hollis were inside the residence when police arrived, O’Connell told the Times-Herald. No arrests were made. 

According to the newspaper’s account, Berkeley police contacted Vallejo police early Saturday afternoon when they learned Hollis might be associated with the Vallejo home. Police entered the house with guns drawn wearing protective helmets and shields. 

Hollis, 21 of Hayward, is wanted in the murder of Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a Berkeley High graduate shot to death last month in front of the College Avenue apartment she was subletting for the summer. 

Berkeley police have said that Hollis got out of a car and fired into a crowd of people, striking only Willis-Starbuck, who had returned to Berkeley from Dartmouth College for a summer internship. 

Okies told the Daily Planet Monday that an eyewitness at the scene said Willis-Starbuck called Hollis to the scene, telling him to “bring the heat,” after she and several friends got into an argument with a group of men. 

 

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