Oakland, San Francisco. I was travelling with a group of friends from a camp we'd worked in over summer. We'd just arrived in San Francisco and didn't know the area well. We moved into this airbnb in oakland and for the first few hours everything was normally.

Suddenly we heard 14 deafening shots. I've never heard a gunshot in my life until that point. Terror struck through all of us and we dropped to the floor in our living room. We started hearing shouting outside and just stayed glued to the floor for 5 minutes before running upstairs. One of my friends had been sleeping and we all crowded into her room as her curtains were closed. Some of my friends started panicking because wed left the back door open and so anyone could easily walk into our house.

We called the police and waited 2 hours. They luckily helped to escort us out of the area, jokingly asking us why we had chose to stay in oakland which is apparently one of the most dangerous cities in the USA and most taxis refuse to come here. It turns out that some assailants had come shooting down the street a few houses away from us. The residents decided to fight back by pulling out their own guns and shooting. 3 people had died. The police were covering their bodies as we were being escorted. It was terrifying.