A passerby who tried to help a stranger fend off a robbery in the parking lot of Alameda's South Shore Center was shot in the leg Saturday afternoon, and while police arrested a suspect at the scene, they have not said whose gun fired the single round that wounded him.

The Alameda Police Department's account, relayed to three Bay Area outlets, is tidy on the outline and silent on the details that matter: it doesn't name the suspect, doesn't list charges, doesn't explain why the arrested person also ended up in a hospital, and doesn't say who owned the weapon. It lands in a city already arguing over whether its police force is staffed for the violence residents keep flagging.

Officers were called to the South Shore Center parking lot — outside a TJ Maxx, per KTVU (external source, opens in a new tab) — shortly after 1:15 p.m. Saturday on a report of gunfire. In the version Alameda police gave reporters, someone approached a shopper and demanded their property. The shopper refused, and a physical struggle broke out. A bystander who noticed the confrontation moved in to help.

At that point, by the department's telling, a gun appeared and one round was fired, hitting the bystander in the leg. The wounded man was hospitalized with injuries described as non-life-threatening and is expected to survive. The shopper who was first targeted was treated at the scene and let go.

A suspect was taken into custody at the parking lot. In a wrinkle none of the coverage accounts for, that person was also transported to a hospital, CBS San Francisco reported (external source, opens in a new tab). Police withheld the suspect's name, offered no explanation for the injury, and named no charges.

What the department did supply was posture. In the statement quoted by KTVU (external source, opens in a new tab), Chief Nishant Joshi called such violence unwelcome in Alameda and vowed his investigators would keep pressing to establish what happened. He also said he had "full confidence" the district attorney would hold the suspect accountable — a striking thing to promise before a single charge has been filed.

The hole at the center of the case is who the gun belonged to. The department's statement, KTVU noted, never says whether the weapon was the suspect's, the targeted shopper's, or the bystander's — the very distinction that separates an armed stickup from a scuffle in which someone else's firearm discharged. Police also did not describe what property was demanded or whether the suspect had brandished anything before the fight started.

The staffing argument is not hypothetical. In June, two people were wounded when gunfire erupted during an unsanctioned teen "beach takeover" near Crown Memorial State Beach, at Park Street and Shoreline Drive, an episode that pushed Alameda residents to demand a heavier police presence (external source, opens in a new tab), SFist reported. That coverage surfaced an uncomfortable number: SFist, citing the East Bay Insiders Newsletter, noted that for two budget cycles running, Alameda has budgeted fewer officers than its department is authorized to fill. Disturbances around the area's shopping centers had already nudged some merchants to close early earlier in the year, the outlet reported.

He also said he had "full confidence" the district attorney would hold the suspect accountable — a striking thing to promise before a single charge has been filed.

Saturday's incident is a different animal — an attempted robbery, not a crowd event — but it lands on a stretch residents have flagged repeatedly as one of the city's busiest and most exposed. Police say they are still working to reconstruct what led to the encounter. Until they release who was arrested, what that person is charged with, and an account of whose finger was on the trigger, the tidy "good Samaritan shot by a robber" story remains, on the public record, the police department's telling rather than a settled set of facts.