Last Chance U’s Coach John Beam Killed in Campus Shooting
Coach John Beam of Netflix’s Last Chance U died on November 14, a day after being shot at Laney Community College in Oakland. “The last two days have been incredibly heavy for our city,” Oakland mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “My thoughts are with Coach John Beam and his loved ones.”
Police identified and arrested a suspect shortly before announcing Beam’s death. The suspect played football at Skyline High School, where Coach Beam worked before Laney, but they did not overlap. Oakland police said the suspected shooter “was on campus for a specific reason,” as opposed to an “active shooter” situation. “This was a very targeted incident,” acting police chief James Beere told reporters on November 13.
Beam was featured in the fifth and final football season of Last Chance U. For five seasons, the show followed junior-college football teams full of players that struggled outside of the game before pivoting to basketball. Beam had been the athletic director at Laney since 2006 and was its head football coach from 2012 to 2024. “Coach Beam is a giant in Oakland — a mentor, an educator and a lifeline for thousands of young people. For over 40 years, he has shaped leaders on and off the field, and our community is shaken alongside his family,” Mayor Lee wrote. “Schools should be the safest spaces in our city. We need guns off our streets now. We are standing together, praying for Coach Beam and his loved ones.”