Oakland has an unfortunate reputation for being a major hub for underage sex trafficking, Wiley said, a dubious claim to fame rivaled only by Atlanta, Georgia. Wiley was one of two police officers who started the OPD’s Child Exploitation Unit in 1999. In 2009, the unit made a total of 640 arrests—mostly for solicitation, or offering sex for money—and 71 of the people arrested were minors. That’s up from 318 total arrests in 2008, 24 of them of minors.

As the number of teenage sex workers in Oakland rises, law enforcement and legal agencies are struggling to find the best way to deal with this problem. Even figuring out what to call the youngest women engaged in Oakland’s sex trade is problematic: to some, the label “prostitute” is a misnomer because of the likelihood that the people involved are minors coerced into the sex trade by adults. The word “prostitute,” said Sharmin Bock, Alameda County Deputy District Attorney, “implies a willingness and a consent that isn’t legally sustainable: You can’t consent to sex if you’re under 18.” According to the 2009 National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, the average age of entry into prostitution and pornography in the United States is 12 to 14 years old.

Three of the advocacy groups shaping the local debate about how to best aid young sex workers are the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, the Oakland Police Department, and MISSSEY, an Oakland-based nonprofit that provides counseling and advocacy for sexually-exploited youth. All three agencies agree on one thing: Young people working in the sex trade are not criminals, they are victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. What the groups don’t seem to agree on is the best way to help them.

According to Wiley, the OPD’s current protocol for dealing with underage solicitation offenders is to arrest and temporarily incarcerate them in an effort to temporarily separate them from their pimps and offer them social services. The police department collaborates with Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR) to provide the young women with an advocate during interrogation. Then, says Wiley, “Most are sent to Juvenile Hall as a protective measure, since it is our experience these victims run back to their pimps, or at least back to the streets or the ‘game.’”

Once in Juvenile Hall, BAWAR will often refer the young women on to another partner, such as MISSSEY, for ongoing advocacy and support. If the teenager is willing to cooperate, she may be able to initiate an investigation against her pimp, Wiley said, but he pointed out that young sex workers often do not want to cooperate because “they basically come out brainwashed” to protect their pimps.

There are those, however, who feel that arresting and incarcerating young offenders is counterproductive. Nola Brantley, executive director of MISSSEY — which stands for Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth — argues that arresting the offenders treats them as criminals, not victims. “They legally meet the criteria not only for human trafficking victims, but the most severe form of human trafficking because its perpetrated against a child,” Brantley said, and then paused.  “But we arrest them.”

Brantley advocates skipping the arrest and incarceration, instead sending young women to a safe house to receive support services. However, some law enforcement and legal experts dismiss this idea as legally problematic and less effective at keeping girls away from the influence of their pimps. They believe that although it’s not ideal, sometimes incarceration is the surest way to keep a child safe.

***

Nobody knows exactly how many minors are working as sex traders in the United States. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, was quoted in the 2009 National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking as saying, “The best estimates, the best data, suggests that we at least have 100,000 American kids a year [who] are the victims of the practice of child prostitution; that number ranges as high as 300,000. “

In 2000, Congress passed the Trafficking Victim Protection Act, which defines minors involved with commercial sex acts as victims.  The law’s passage reflected an increasing awareness that many of the youth involved with sex trafficking come from dysfunctional families where there has been prior abuse or trauma, and whose lives have already been touched by the legal system and other government bureaucracies. Ten years ago, said Wiley, he worked on a project interviewing 105 young girls involved in Oakland prostitution and found that each had been sexually abused before escaping to the streets. “Every single one of them had been victims of sexual assault at the hands of someone they trusted: mom’s boyfriend, their own biological parent, uncle,” Wiley said.

Brantley sees evidence of the hard lives these young people have led every day. “We’re talking about heavily system-involved kids,” she said. Brantley said that approximately 90 percent of the youth she works with are either in the foster care or probation systems. These, she said, are “children who’ve already been a part of the public system, that have already had systems and institutions and families fail them.“

Brantley said that the girls’ youth combined with their unstable home lives adds to their vulnerability. Most girls are introduced to prostitution through boyfriends who later become their pimps, she said, and many girls stay involved with them because the pimps are often the people who care the most for them. “[Pimps] don’t just grab a girl, they go through a relationship-building technique,” Brantley said. She identifies a five-stage process—recruitment, seduction, isolation, coercion and violence—that reels girls in and keeps them there. “It’s through those stages that a girl is turned out. It’s not that he just meets her and says, ‘Hey, I’m going to sexually exploit you,’” Brantley said.

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Sharmin Bock prosecutes sex trafficking cases, and she sees the emotional power pimps often have over their victims. “For some girls, it might be their first love, or even their second love, but they think it’s love,” she said.

Experts say that once a young woman becomes involved in sex trafficking, it’s even harder for her to get out. “We know today that coercion into prostitution is often psychological,” said Dr. Melissa Farley, a research and clinical psychologist with Prostitution and Research Education, a nonprofit human trafficking abolitionist organization based in San Francisco.

Farley spoke in February as part of a human trafficking legislative panel held in San Francisco’s State Building. “Prostitution is not a choice,” she explained to the hushed audience crowding the auditorium. Farley said the conditions that make it possible for a woman to give her genuine consent for sexual activity—physical safety, a power balance between partners, the woman having real alternatives to prostitution—are not present in most cases.

According to Farley, only 2 percent of prostitutes make up the “sexually exploited elite”—women who service men for a lot of money for a brief period and then get out of the sex trade. “These are women who are usually privileged by race or class or education and they usually have options for escape when they’re ready to get out,” she said. Farley said that 38 percent of prostitutes are women who temporarily need the money, and they turn to selling themselves as a survival mechanism or to get through an emergency situation, such as losing a job or escaping a violent spouse. The remaining 60 percent are the poorest sex workers, many having been physically coerced into prostitution.

Farley described the desperate situations of some victims, including one woman who told her that every trick she turned “kept her one man away from homelessness.” Farley paused. “That’s not a choice,” she said.

***

Despite the Trafficking Victim Protection Act’s presence on the law books for nearly a decade, in 2009 the National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking found that juveniles are still often arrested on prostitution or prostitution-related charges. The report also states that minors charged with these crimes face harsher sentences than juveniles arrested on other misdemeanors.

“Traditionally, for most law enforcement, prostitution is a criminal activity where the people engaging in it are [considered] criminals,” said Wiley. But at the Oakland Police Department, he said, things have changed over the last few years. “We’ve really looked at this with a different set of eyes, that this is a victimization,” Wiley said. “It has changed from the old days of just ‘Hook em up, lock em up, don’t look back,’ to ‘Hey, we may have a victim here.’”

Wiley says his unit operates differently than similar units in other cities. “For juveniles, there’s an entire triaging process,” he said. A 24-hour staffed receiving desk—the only one in the county, he adds—allows for an immediate background check on each youth arrested. Their records are screened for previous arrests, if they’ve been reported missing, and whether a probation or case manager has previously been assigned to them. The girls are interviewed by trained investigators who, according to Wiley, “do this quite often, and can usually distinguish between the legit and the bullshit,” such as when young sex workers lie to protect their pimps.

According to Ursula Dickson, an Alameda County deputy district attorney who works in the juvenile department, although investigators in Oakland can link the young women up with support services outside of the juvenile justice system, including help from MISSSEY or the West Coast Children’s Center, after their arrest most often the girls are sent to Juvenile Hall, where they are immediately paired with an advocate. Probation officials determine how to process the case: Close it and refer the girls onto support services, or refer it to the District Attorney’s Office to determine if it warrants charging. Dickson said that although the probation department has the option to drop the case, “The young women we’re dealing with, that’s probably not a good idea for these types of cases.”

If the case is referred to the district attorney, the DA’s office has 48 hours while the juvenile is in custody to look at the police report to determine if the case will be charged, otherwise known as “filing a petition.” A probation officer is assigned to investigate the circumstances of the case and the minor’s background.  Once charged, the offender must attend a detention hearing, where the court determines if it is safe for the community and for the juvenile for them to be released, and under what circumstances—for example, the minor may be released but required to wear a GPS unit.

If the young sex worker admits to the charge, which Dickson said is often the case, the court may decide to keep her in custody until her sentencing hearing two weeks later. The charges the young women in this population face are typically for misdemeanors such as disturbing the peace, for which the maximum penalty is 90 days in Juvenile Hall. Dickson said these charges do not follow the young women onto their adult records after they turn 18.

During their time in Juvenile Hall, the women are offered social services from groups like MISSSEY. Dickson points out that the goal of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation, not necessarily punishment. “The purpose is to get the least restrictive environment to get them the services they need to be rehabilitated,” she said.

Some say that short-term incarceration is a necessary stopgap measure. “Oftentimes [Juvenile Hall] is the one we have to go to because it protects the girls from themselves,” Wiley said. If they are not detained, the girls will often go right back to their pimps, he said.

But some advocates are pushing for an alternative to incarceration, and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is developing a new diversion program. In September 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger authorized AB 499, which allowed the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to create a pilot program to divert sexually exploited youth away from incarceration and into support services. Deputy DA Ursula Dickson is working with other county offices—including police agencies, social services, the probation department, child welfare, and public defenders—to create a program that she says would prevent sexually exploited minors from automatically being sent to Juvenile Hall, and instead enroll them in counseling and support services.

According to Dickson, arrested minors brought to Juvenile Hall who qualify for the program would instead be released to foster care, group homes or their parents’ homes. The diversion program would require the teens to report for classroom instruction for two days a week for twelve weeks. “The program would address the different parts of their victimization,” Dickson said, with curriculum on therapeutic topics like coping with past trauma, or how to have healthy dating relationships. Classes would be provided by groups like MISSSEY or the probation department. Dickson explained that counselors would be on hand “to ensure they focus on the trauma and the issues they will face when they get out of the lifestyle.”

Not all girls arrested for solicitation will qualify for the diversion program, Dickson said. Girls who have had multiple arrests and who have been sex workers for many years will most likely remain in Juvenile Hall for longer periods of time, but they will still be referred to programs such as MISSSEY to receive support services.

The reason for this bifurcated approach, Dickson said, is that it is not uncommon for more experienced girls to be sent by their pimps to recruit girls with less experience from group homes or foster care. A program that mixed girls of different experience levels could backfire, she said. “For lack of a better word, we don’t want this to become a recruiting grounds,” she said.

Dickson said the DA’s office hopes to have the pilot program in place by fall 2010, and that if it is successful, they hope to set up diversion programs for girls at each level of involvement in the sex trade. She says the program is not intended to be one-size-fits-all. “You have to take each child as they come to you,” she said.

***

But some advocates like Brantley of MISSSEY object to this type of diversion program on principle, because it still exposes young sex workers to the juvenile justice system—the diversion program and support services don’t kick in until after a girl has been arrested and brought to Juvenile Hall. Brantley believes that arresting young sex workers treats them as criminals, not as victims. “Do you arrest the child being sexually abused by her soccer coach?” she said.

Brantley says that even with a diversion program, eventually young women will return to a community where violence and prostitution are prevalent. “The conditions that created the vulnerabilities still exist,” she said. “They’re not having their basic needs met.” Brantley said it essentially becomes a revolving door: arrest, detention, back on the street, repeat.

Brantley believes a better solution would be for the county to fund a safe house designed specifically to provide health and social services to sexually exploited children. Being able to transport young sex workers to a safe house would also give law enforcement an alternative to arresting and incarcerating young offenders, she said.

Brantley said that a safe house is also necessary in order to protect girls who cooperate with law enforcement by testifying against their traffickers. She said that many of the girls came from the same communities as their pimps, and may be in danger if they testify against them. “If we’re asking victims to participate in law enforcement efforts and to testify, how do we protect them?” Brantley said.

But it’s not that simple, says Sharmin Bock. According to her, a secure safe house was originally part of AB 499. However, the concept of keeping minors in a locked safe house has raised its own legal concerns, particularly with the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that a locked safe house would be a form of forced detention. “You cannot constitutionally detain someone in our society without findings,” Bock said. On the other hand, she said, without a locked facility, what is to stop the girls from going back to their pimps?

Dickson said organizers at the Interagency Children’s Policy Council of Alameda County (ICPC) are still involved in looking for potential locations for an unlocked safe house, but funding issues are making it difficult. She said the council is trying to find a location far from Oakland — far enough to be kept hidden from pimps, and to discourage the girls from leaving the unlocked building.

But some say that sending young sex workers to an unlocked safe house will undermine the legal system’s ability to encourage completion of social service and diversion programs. The benefit of bringing the girls into custody and through the juvenile justice system, said Dickson, is that it gives the girls an incentive to complete the diversion program instead of going back to their pimps. “Of course you try to engage them, “ she said, but without custody, “How does one make her stay? She could go and there would be nothing we could do.”

“The one thing that we have with a diversion program when they come into the juvenile justice center is at least that you can say, ‘You have to do this, this is going to be part of getting rid of this case. We’re trying to divert you away from the juvenile justice system but to do that you have to go through these steps,’” Dickson said, adding that there would be no other way to legally require the girls to get help.  “Everything else would be voluntary,” she said. Since some young sex workers may not see themselves as victims in the first place, voluntary participation in a diversion program would be unlikely, she said.

***

Law enforcement, the district attorney’s office and advocates at MISSSEY all agree that part of the solution to halting the growth of juvenile prostitution lies in focusing prosecution on pimps, not the girls, and encouraging community awareness of the issue.

Part of the problem, said Wiley, is that for pimps, it is currently easier and less risky to sell human beings than it is to traffic in drugs or other contraband. For one thing, he said, the supply of easily exploitable girls — runaways, kids from low-income families or abusive situations — is unlimited, whereas drugs first have to be produced and then navigated through various obstacles to bring them to the streets.

There’s also less risk of arrest. For a pimp to be arrested, Wiley said, he would have to be caught in the act, whereas if someone gets caught with drugs, they go to jail. Wiley said it was rare to see a pimp out directing his girls, which makes the girls themselves easier to arrest. Moreover, he said, “Most of these girls have been so conditioned, they’re not going to roll over on their pimp” and turn him in.

Ultimately, said Wiley, “Where there is money to be made and little, if any, risk of arrest, the bad guys will go.”

As a result, county and state officials are currently introducing a crop of innovative programs and laws to target—and prosecute—traffickers while protecting their victims.  In October, 2009, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and California Assemblymember Sandre Swanson (D-Alameda) celebrated the signing into law of the state Human Trafficking Accountability Act, which Swanson wrote. The law strengthened the penalties for traffickers, raising the fine from $5,000 to $20,000 per count, and it dedicated half of these penalty funds to support programs that serve sexually exploited minors.

Bock said the DA’s office has recently proposed additional state legislation, AB 2319, that will clearly include coercion into prostitution as a trafficking crime. She said that current state law does not state that coercion itself constitutes human trafficking, and that doing so will more clearly define what is punishable under the umbrella of sex trafficking. “This law will clarify that force, fear and coercion are a substantial deprivation of liberty when a minor is induced or encouraged to perform commercial sex with an adult,” she said.

Meanwhile, Californians Against Slavery (CAS), an all-volunteer nonprofit based in Fremont, is collecting signatures to get an initiative on the November 2010 ballot that would increase jail time for traffickers. According to the CAS website, the current penalties for traffickers are less than those served by convicted rapists — three to eight years. “It is atrocious that someone can be convicted and walk after three to four years,” said Cate Kuhne, the group’s acting regional director for Northern California. “It was imperative that the penalties be increased. That is the most important thing in this initiative.”

The initiative would also mandate that law enforcement officers must be trained in how to handle human trafficking cases. According to Kuhne, past assembly bills have outlined training for law enforcement, but there’s nothing in place that says departments have to do it. The initiative proposes a mandatory two-hour training block for all members of law enforcement assigned to field or investigative duties. Californians Against Slavery hopes to get one million signatures by March 31 in order for the initiative to be included on the November ballot.

Meanwhile, in February, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office unveiled a program designed to raise community awareness about sex trafficking and encourage the community’s cooperation in stopping it. The program is called “H.E.A.T. Watch” — H.E.A.T. stands for Human Exploitation and Trafficking. The program’s goal is to get the community involved in preventing human trafficking, coordinate law enforcement activities and intelligence, and to educate elected officials and policy makers on the prevalence of human trafficking.

Bock heads up the H.E.A.T. unit in the District Attorney’s office. “It’s modeled on the neighborhood watch program,” she said. “It engages community businesses, schools, and faith-based organizations to be the eyes and ears of the neighborhood.” Bock said members of the H.E.A.T unit staff have been handing out flyers to hotels and motels to engage them in the fight to stop human trafficking by reporting suspicious behavior. “Many don’t report what is happening because they fear ramifications from that,” Bock said. “It’s important to let them know they are a partner and not a target.”

H.E.A.T. Watch is also establishing a standardized training curriculum for law enforcement officers, designed to help facilitate interagency sharing of information and allow for a more coordinated effort of enforcement operations. “Human trafficking knows no borders,” Bock said. “But we need to work with other jurisdictions, because these girls are being crossed against state lines.” She said there is a common misconception that human trafficking only occurs when girls are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery in other countries. “It’s not just an international problem, and it’s no less serious domestically,” she said.

Other legislators are now looking to Alameda County’s efforts to stop the sexual exploitation of minors as an example. Ursula Dickson has received multiple calls from state assembly members asking about the county’s diversion program and other steps the county is taking to combat human trafficking. “The more people that want to get involved and the more legislators that want to do something for their specific area, is great,” Dickson said.  “We can talk about it all day, but now we have the [lawmakers] who are saying, ‘Let’s do it.’”

There were about twenty others in the cell with me that night at the North County Jail in Oakland, a stone’s throw from the elevated freeway where we had all been arrested. It was mostly a group of anarchists, who were surprisingly relaxed about being behind bars and seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. They passed the time bemoaning their soggy bologna sandwiches, playing chess with orange peels, and telling cop jokes. As I lay back on my sneakers searching for a few minutes of sleep, I thought about the absurd series of events that had brought me into this anarchist jailhouse bonding retreat.

Since becoming a grad student at UC Berkeley’s Journalism School last fall, I’ve been following the ongoing student protests and campus demonstrations with interest. The protest movement, aimed at protecting public education from deep budget cuts, fee hikes and furloughs that have been passed down by the state and the university, has been a source of debate among student journalists here at Oakland North for the entire year. I was one of eighteen first-year grad students who worked full time for the site during the fall semester, and helped cover the occupation of Wheeler Hall on November 20, 2009. This spring, I’m auditing the Oakland North class and continue to contribute to the site on a freelance basis.

As March 4^th approached, a recurring debate arose in the Oakland North newsroom: How do we cover a story so close to home? How can we report objectively when, as UC students ourselves, we are being profoundly affected by the consequences of the budget cuts?

Yet there was a growing sense that this was a story too important to ignore. With hundreds of actions planned across the state, we knew that this was an opportunity to connect the larger budget crisis with our community here in Oakland. We planned to focus on the protests planned for Oakland, Berkeley, and Sacramento, and put together teams of field reporters to follow the action. My role for the day was to take photographs of the march from Berkeley to Oakland, the 4 o’clock rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza, and whatever happened afterward — you can see my photographs in the slideshow above.

I, for one, began to think that our role as student journalists could actually make our coverage better. By being near the action and in contact with student organizers, we might be able to cover this story more closely than the mainstream media ever could. I started attending March 4th organizing meetings to make contacts and learn more about what some of the more radical protesters were planning. I knew that something was definitely in the works — but whatever it was, the protesters were keeping it pretty tightly under wraps.

So when the march from Berkeley to Oakland and the rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza turned into a dance party in the streets and ultimately a highway takeover on I-880, I felt the rush of adrenaline that any reporter feels when news is breaking, when you’re seeing first-hand what most people will be watching on TV. I knew I was taking a risk by following the protest, but I also knew that this story was about to reach its climax, and I wasn’t about to miss it.

I sent a quick text to another student who was working that day as an Oakland North site editor (“They’re taking over the freeway!”) and ran off after the mob, along with an entire contingent of journalists. I caught up to and photographed the protesters as they ascended the Nimitz Freeway off-ramp, passing cars and commuters (some angry, some amused) who had been stopped in their tracks.

Everywhere else, though, there was movement. Look: Protesters chanting! A sea of faces behind black bandanas! Everyone shouting: “They say class cuts, we say class war!” Fists in the air! Traffic flares and megaphones, the whole scene spiraling out of control, and flocks of people along for the ride, just to see what comes next. And orders! So many orders, coming from all sides: Stick together! Slow down! Pick up the pace! Fuck you! Get OFF the freeway!

Not far behind the protesters, there was another group charging up the off-ramp: a squadron of riot police, jogging purposefully and in tight formation toward the crowd. For those who wanted off the freeway, it was too late to turn back, and there seemed to be no exit in sight. One high school student, presumably trying to escape, fell 25 feet off the freeway.

At the core of the protest was a group that huddled together on the south side of the freeway with an “Occupy Everything” sign, many locking arms as the first wave of police reached them.  The officers hacked at their knees with nightsticks, felling them one by one until those resisting were arrested and the rest had lowered themselves to the ground. Another group of police rounded up those who were spread about the freeway, mostly protesters trying to find an escape route and cameramen (including myself) who had fallen back from the action to avoid impeding arrest.  

About 150 arrests were made in all. Along with the protesters, I and at least three other reporters from small or independent news outlets were arrested, cited with unlawful assembly and obstructing a public place, and forced to spend the night in jail.

Among them was another student reporter, Cameron Burns of the Daily Californian, who took this video footage on the highway. In it, an officer can be heard telling Burns to get off the freeway. Burns replies, “Where do I go, sir? Where do I go?”  In his voice-over narration accompanying the video, Burns says that the officer responded by shoving him, causing him to flee. “I didn’t know what else to do, but run away from them and towards the mob. After being tackled to my knees I ended up face-down on the asphalt as the cop handcuffed me,” he says in the video.

Two video journalists, Brandon Jourdan and David Martinez, were covering the protest for the independent daily news program Democracy Now. Both were arrested. Take a look at their footage, and watch the scene depicted from 3:00 to 3:10 to get a sense of what I was witnessing.  In it, a group of journalists are taking pictures and video of a protester being beaten to the ground by a police officer. You can find me in the brown jacket leaning against the median, being ordered to kneel by another officer. I turn to see the punishment being unleashed next to me and quickly comply. I continue to take photos from my knees, capturing the final image in the slideshow above. A few moments later I was approached by another officer, and I explained to him that I was a reporter. But instead of being asked for proof, I was ordered to the ground and handcuffed.

You can also clearly see Jourdan in the video (dressed in black, in the background of the second shot). He is approached by an officer and presents his Democracy Now press credentials, but, like me, Jourdan was headed for a long bus ride and a cold bologna sandwich.  After we were both released from jail, I contacted Jourdan and asked him about what happened. “When the police officer approached me, I showed him press credentials,” Jourdan said. “He told me, ‘You’re under arrest,’ so I got on my knees and stopped recording. At a certain point I told another officer I had credentials. He seemed like he was thinking about letting me go, but the other officer said ‘No, he’s under arrest!”

This screen grab from Jourdan and Martinez’s footage shows Jourdan (in black, showing press credentials), Sullivan (far right, taking photo), and myself (kneeling in foreground). Jourdan and I were arrested, while Sullivan was allowed to continue covering the story. (Photo courtesy of Brandon Jourdan and David Martinez)

If you go back and watch the scene again, you’ll notice a third reporter on the right side of the frame. His name is Justin Sullivan, and he’s a staff photographer for Getty Images. At 3:05, you can see him taking this picture with one camera, while a second, bigger camera hangs off of his shoulder. Unlike Jourdan and myself, Sullivan wasn’t arrested. He and several other mainstream media reporters were ordered to sit on the ground, and then told by another officer that they had to leave. They were relocated to a freeway off-ramp, where Sullivan later used his big camera to take this photo of me being taken away by police. The picture was quickly picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle, where it was published that evening on the front page of SFGate.com.

While the video makes it appear as if Sullivan was completely removed from the action by being on the other side of the highway median from me, this isn’t entirely true. The core group of protesters and the center of police action was located about thirty feet to the right of this frame, on Sullivan’s side of the freeway. In fact, Jourdan and I had relocated to the left side of the barricade in order to avoid being in the way of the police as they made arrests.

I’m not here to gripe about my being arrested—whether or not we journalists were “obstructing a public place” by following the protesters is up for debate. But what I would like to call into question is why some reporters went to jail, and others were able to keep doing their jobs.

As our picture was being taken by Sullivan, I asked my arresting officer why some photographers were allowed to be on the freeway, while others were being taken away in handcuffs. I saw no discernible difference between the two groups, except that the journalists who went free had bigger cameras, indicators of their professional status. It’s also likely that police were more familiar with some of the mainstream reporters, having had more exposure to them over the years. My arresting officer, though, said nothing. Later that night, as I lay on my sneakers, listening to the political banter of my dissident cellmates, I still didn’t have a good answer.

While the ascent of new media has enabled anybody with a camera and a web site to report the news, old stereotypes still shape the question of what makes someone a journalist. For the OPD and other law enforcement officers who may encounter similar situations in the future, it will be important to recognize that the rules of media are changing. While it’s easy to recognize the traditional tools of the trade—giant TV cameras, multiple professional quality lenses hanging from shoulders, and big plastic press badges—most independent and student reporters (who make up an ever growing part of the flailing journalism industry) don’t have access to them.

Even obtaining a press credential—a government-issued laminated card that identifies one as a member of a newsgathering organization—can be tricky, especially for students who are not yet employees of media outlets. Credentials have traditionally been issued by government agencies, including local police departments, but there are few regulations governing who gets them and where they must be accepted. Some of the agencies that once supplied Bay Area reporters with credentials no longer do so, like the California Highway Patrol which stopped issuing them in 2004. In lieu of a government-issued credential, the CHP and some other law enforcement and government agencies will sometimes accept a simple photo ID or business card provided by a news organization.

I’m 23 years old. I’m a student. I was wearing street clothes on the day of the protest. I borrowed a camera from a friend, and followed a bunch of protesters onto a freeway to take pictures for a news web site. The only press credentials I had to offer were a business card and a student ID. I could have been anybody. In the eyes of a cop trying to resolve a chaotic situation, it’s easy to see how someone like me could be swept up in the process of making arrests.  But people like me—young, under-resourced, and underpaid (if we’re lucky enough to be paid at all)—represent the future of journalism. It’s no longer the size of your camera that counts.

As the crowd headed onto Telegraph someone broke the window at the Subway sandwich shop, and the crowd quickly squared off against the arriving tide of police officers.

Oakland North correspondents Shannon Service and Josh Wolf were there to report on the event. The two reporters sat down to review their footage and discuss what they witnessed that night.

A similar dance party is scheduled at San Francisco State March 3.

Josh Wolf is embedded with the student protest movement; for more information on his involvement please click here.

The four men arrested in connection with the May 16th murders.

events of May 16 are only a part of the violence perpetrated against our community by this gang,” said Russo.

If successful, the injunction will limit the gang’s ability to congregate in large groups on the street in Oakland, set restrictions that make it more difficult for gang members to commit criminal acts, and also make it easier for the police to monitor gang activity.  “This will limit the gang’s ability to do what they do best: plan and execute crime,” said OPD Captain Anthony Toribio.

If granted, this will be the first gang injunction in Oakland. It will prohibit gang activities in designated “Safety Zones,” which include roughly 100 blocks of North Oakland between 1-580, Emeryville, Berkeley and Telegraph Avenue. It will also limit the presence of the gangs on the streets by setting a curfew for the 19 people named in the injunction between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am. If any of the 19 members of the gang are caught engaging in prohibited activities like associating with other gang members, selling drugs, or possessing firearms, they can be found in contempt of court and face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

These brief jail sentences are effective in breaking up a gang’s ability to plan and execute illegal activities, said OPD Sgt. Bernard Ortiz. “It’s an amazing thing that it does work because it has such a low sentence,” he said. “It’s like a mosquito bite—it’s a nuisance.”

While the May 16th incident brought the actions of the gang to widespread public attention, the North Oakland community has long been aware of their presence. According to problem solving officer Pat Gerrans who works Beat 12X, the Temescal neighborhood, the NSO gang is responsible for the majority of crime through all of North Oakland and in specific areas such as the Golden Gate neighborhood.

The OPD believes that gang activity is related to an increase in violent crime in North Oakland. In 2007 there were three incidences of violent crime in North Oakland that were attributed to NSO members; in 2009, the OPD reported 18 violent crimes, including 7 murders. The NSO gang is known for drug sales and robberies as well, specifically in the “Golden Triangle” area, said Russo. “All the crimes in the area are connected to gang violence, but nobody will talk, they’re too scared,” said Don Link a 30-year North Oakland resident and chair of the Shattuck Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council.

OPD Chief Anthony Batts is familiar with the use of injunctions and believes that they are an effective tool in combating gang violence; during his time on the police force in Long Beach, California, injunctions were enforced in five areas during the mid ‘90s. While he said the injunction is not a cure-all, he called it a tool in “the fight to give the streets back to the good people of Oakland.”

The gang injunction, which the Oakland City Attorney’s office petitioned for this week, was modeled after similar injunctions used in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and was created after consulting experts in L.A. and the gang task force unit at the SFPD, said Russo. For example, gang members can elect to take part in an “opt-out” program that is based on one used in San Francisco. The program allows gang members to be removed from the injunction if they can show evidence that they have left the gang and are working to better their lives through education, mentorship programs or employment.

This is the first time the City of Oakland has gathered enough intelligence on gang membership and activity to pursue an injunction. According to Ortiz and Alex Katz, a spokesperson for the City Attorney’s office, the City of Oakland has had difficulty in the past proving gang membership. In 1994, The District Attorney’s Office filed for a gang injunction against the B-Street gang, but was denied on the grounds of unconstitutionality. Then in 1997, the California Supreme Court ruled gang injunctions constitutional, opening the door for cities such as Los Angeles to petition for use. However, in order to avoid racial profiling and the targeting of individuals, the standards for proving the existence of a gang and gang members’ responsibility for crime are stringent.

In order for the City Attorney’s Office to petition for an injunction, the office needed airtight evidence of the NSO’s criminal activity, said the OPD’s Toribio. The injunction petition is based on more than a year and a half of work—including intel collected from criminal reports, inside sources, and conversations with community members—performed by more than 100 police officers, although most of the information collection was done by a group of young problem solving officers (PSOs) who patrol the North Oakland area. Officers Nadia Clark, John Cunnie, Pat Gerrans, and Jason Trode started their investigation in January of 2008, poring over thousands of pages of documents, collecting information, talking to community policing organizations—often during their personal hours without overtime, said Clark. “It was a lot of work,” said Clark, “We had 1,000 pages of evidence to review on top of other PSO duties.”

Local community watch groups “actually deserve some of the credit. It was their talking about the crime that they were seeing that helped point us in the right direction,” said Ortiz. “ Sometimes they think we don’t listen, but we did listen. And they helped.”

All of this information was integral in providing the existence of a gang in order to file for the injunction, said Toribio. “We had a perfect storm of evidence,” he said, “proof of existence, location and community nuisance.”

“Oakland gangs have never been identified like this,” agreed Ortiz.

The gang, though divided into smaller groups by territory, which include the Gaskill Maniacs, the Bushrod Cold Gunnaz 59, 600 The 6, 6100, and ASAP/FT, is a unified force of over 40 members. Currently, 19 members are listed on the injunction request, but more names can be added if an individual meets certain criteria: if police officers or community residents identify someone as a gang member, if there is evidence of past criminal activity, or if the person self-identifies as a gang member. The OPD has also gathered physical descriptions that aid in the identification of members: tattoos, red or blue baseball caps, and certain graffiti and clothing emblazoned with the gang’s name or symbols. A combination of these elements can potentially provide evidence of

An example of a tattoo characteristic of the North Side Oakland gang.

membership, but adding new names to the injunction will take the same due process and meticulous proof that was necessary for the first 19, said Toribio. “This is not capricious, this is not arbitrary. We’ve done our homework,” he said.

Toribio said that North Oakland’s problem solving officers are blazing a trail for other officers throughout Oakland; he believes that the small 100-block North Oakland experiment will ultimately spread to other areas of Oakland. He said officers are already working to provide similar documentation on West Oakland gangs to file a gang injunction in that area by spring.

“We are convinced this will be effective in fighting gangs and ending a climate of fear and terror,”  he said.
Additional reporting by Anna Bloom. All photos courtesy of the Oakland City Attorney’s office.

Mayor Ron Dellums is a staunch supporter of this ordinance as part of his effort to fight violence. “This nation is building a gun nation. We have to take any action to prevent that in Oakland,” Dellums said in an interview with Oakland North at the peace conference he held early in this month.  Dellums frequently touts the fact that Oakland’s overall crime rate dropped by 10 percent last year. According to the Oakland Police Department, aggressive assaults involving firearms also decreased by 25 percent within the last year.

Oakland does not currently have stores that may legally sell guns to the public. Yet firearms still play a critical role in Oakland violence. In 2008, 89 percent of homicides in Oakland were gun-related. Between 2008 and 2009, gun-related crime decreased by only one percent.

Even though there are no publicly-accessible gun shops in Oakland, guns are still brought in from outside city limits and are often illegally purchased by people prohibited from owning firearms. Although California gun laws stipulate that felons are ineligible to purchase guns, and that a background check is required to purchase a firearm, according the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in 2007 a total of 200 firearms found in Oakland at crime scenes and seized during arrests were traced backed to felons in illegal possession of them. In 2008, the number jumped to 263. As of December 9^th, 2009, the number for the past year had increased to 283.

When asked during the peace conference if the city’s ammunition ordinance could create a significant crime reduction, Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts said that the Oakland Police Department is supportive of anything that takes guns off the street. “A lot of crime related guns seem to come from Reno,” said Batts. Unlike California, Nevada does not require private gun dealers to run background checks, purchased guns do not need to be registered, there is no waiting period to buy a gun, and there is no legal limit to the number and type of firearms that can be purchased.

Lindsay Nichols, a staff attorney for the San Francisco-based law center Legal Community Against Violence, said that the ordinance will discourage gun violence by giving police more information about where criminals are buying their ammunition and allowing the city to keep tighter tabs on ammunition suppliers. Nichols consulted for the city of Oakland and helped draft the ordinance. “What we are trying to do is to fill the loophole that enables people with illegally purchased guns to obtain ammunition,” says Nichols.

According to Nichols, a similar ordinance that took effect in 2007 in Sacramento brought significant results. Sacramento required ammunition dealers to have licenses and keep records of gun purchasers. In 2008, the Sacramento Police Department, using the records of ammunition sellers, tracked down 156 people who illegally purchased ammunition, of which 124 were convicted felons. This resulted over 100 felony charges filed, and 84 firearms being seized. Nichols said the success in Sacramento led the state to mandate that ammunition dealers keep sales records.

The Calguns Foundation, the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol Association sent letters to oppose to the ordinance. “These ordinances are mainly to harass the law-abiding gun owners, ” said Gene Hoffman, president of the Calguns Foundation, adding that there is currently no ammunition store on the Oakland map to regulate.

According to the Department of Justice, there are currently 8,539 Oakland residents that have purchased firearms legally over the past five years. Oakland gun purchasers “will continue to have to drive long distances or make two trips because there is a 10-day purchase waiting period to buy new firearms, which they could otherwise use to defend themselves in their homes,” said Hoffman.

Kevin Thomason, an Oakland board member of the Calguns Foundation, agreed. “The most worrisome thing is what if my guns get lost and stolen? I have to report it in 48 hours, but what if I am on vacation and couldn’t do it?” he said.

About a dozen community members attended the vigil along with a half-dozen reporters, a far cry from the 100-150 people that organizers expected. The supporters carried signs highlighting the $75,000 reward being offered. They carried candles, and many wore clothes bearing the child’s name and likeness.

“Our efforts will not stop. We are committed to finding Hasanni,” said Courtney Tascoe-Burris, who helped organize the vigil. “We believe somebody saw something. … We are imploring you to please come forward, please come tell the detectives at this station what you may know.”

Hasanni, a Fremont boy with cerebral palsy who would have turned six in September, disappeared from a car parked near Shuz of Rockridge at 6012 College Avenue around 4 p.m. August 10, 2009, according to his foster father, Louis Ross. But an extensive police search turned up no sign of the boy.

Two supporters hold candles

On Aug. 28, Oakland police arrested Ross and his fiancée Jennifer Campbell, the boy’s biological aunt, on suspicion of murder, but the District Attorney’s office declined to file charges.

This month news media have reported that Ross and Campbell have since moved out of their Fremont home and their whereabouts are unknown.

But despite the months of disappointment, supporters held fast to the idea that Hasanni is still alive at Wednesday’s vigil. “It’s only been six months. We don’t consider six months a long time. The case of Jaycee Dugard tells us that we should not give up our search. We should not give up our hope,” said Dr. Ramona Tascoe, the mother of Tascoe-Burris and ex-wife of attorney John Burris, who had at one point been acting as an advisor to the child’s foster parents. “Hasanni may very well still be alive so we are calling on the public to have a renewed strength, a renewed commitment.”

Tena Oakley tells passers-by about the search for Hasanni

Among those gathered to support Hasanni was Tena Oakley, a Newark woman whose 32-year-old daughter disappeared three years ago. “Because my daughter is an adult and she’s in Michigan, there is no searching going on for her,” said Oakley. “I strongly believe that if you help people you’ll end up getting help too. … I’m hoping that if we find Hasanni maybe my daughter will show up, or we’ll be able to find — something.”

Toward the end of the rally Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts came out to address the small crowd of supporters and news media. He said that the department is considering the case an active homicide investigation and he gets frequent updates on the case.

“Although we consider it that way and we still have to follow up those leads, we still ask that you look out for young Hasanni Campbell just in case that is not the case,” said Batts.

Chief Batts speaks to television reporters

Batts said the police department is pursuing leads with the District Attorney’s office, but he would not say whether Campbell’s foster parents are the subject of that investigation.

“We wanted to show public support for the detectives, the Oakland Police Department’s effort, but then also to encourage them and challenge them to do more,” said organizer Tascoe-Burris. “If attention was going to be brought to this story, it was going to take a community effort, it was going to require a grassroots movement.”

When asked what more the police should be doing, Tascoe-Burris paused.

“Can I toss that one?” her mother chimed in. Tascoe claimed that several people told police they saw a boy matching Campbell’s description walking along College Avenue the day he disappeared, but that the police reports contradict these witnesses accounts. She said that the police have not answered why the case became a homicide investigation or why the foster parents were arrested and then released.

“When that story went out, there was nothing that doubled back and said, ‘Well we were wrong. We were premature,’” said Tascoe. “We were left to believe as the public that the story was true but we’re not going to do anything about it.”

“We need to have answers for why we’re not going to do anything about it if you think these people killed this child,” she said. “We frankly don’t buy the story that they killed him until and unless we see proof that there’s reason to believe that—and even then, as you know, innocent until proven guilty.”

Supporters bow their heads in prayers

At the end of the rally, the supporters began to sing, “We shall find Hasanni soon,” to the tune of “We Shall Overcome.”

“Oh, deep in our hearts, we do believe, that we shall find Hasanni soon,” they sang, their heads bowed, almost in prayer, as the TV news cameras pulled back to capture the tableau.

Oakland North’s complete coverage of the investigation into Hasanni Campbell’s disappearance, including an interactive timeline of events, can be found here.

Dozens of clergy members and ministers around the East Bay, Oakland police officers and city officials, and those who involved in juvenile crime prevention gathered in the conference.  The purpose of the summit was to share information about where people can find crime prevention information and encourage collaborations among faith-based organizations to give mentorship to youth who have nowhere to seek help.

“I think the faith-based community is underutilized.  People find safe haven in those places,” said Dellums in his opening speech.  He said that 40 to 50 percent of crime is committed by formerly incarcerated people, and that youth often turn to churches for guidance, job opportunities, and mentorship after they get out of Juvenile Hall. “Those kids have to know that they are cared for.  Now we as a community have to be larger parents to them,” Dellums said.

Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts, who spoke at the conference, shared similar thoughts.  He said that two police officers met with 30 teen boys at Acts Full Gospel Church as part of the police department’s Our Kids mentorship program, program funded under Measure Y and aimed at reducing school-related violence by offering psycho-social assessment and counseling.  “Those kids have the officers’ cell phone numbers. They know if they need to call at 2 a.m., those officers will pick up the phone,” Batts said.

Overall, Batts and Dellums noted that crime has been down in Oakland over the past year. Batts touted the statistic that crime this January was down by 38 percent compared to January 2009. Dellums also said that after he called for cooperation among city’s agencies and communities last year, Oakland accomplished and overall 10 percent crime reduction.

At the one-day conference at the Claremont Hotel, attendees enjoyed a continental breakfast, filet mignon steaks and strawberry cakes. The fancy hotel setting and the quiet respectful demeanor of the guests was a great contrast to the violent streets in Oakland. However, most of the participants saw the conference as one of the few opportunities for them to get together to share ideas.

“The city of Oakland has been in good relationship with us, but Mayor Dellums is the first mayor who approved of what we have been doing,” said Pastor Brandon Reems of the Center of Hope Community Church in the Arroyo Vallejo neighborhood.  The Center of Hope Community Church has been involved in activities such as visiting young people at juvenile halls on Valentine’s Day to make them feel they are part of the community.  “We are rooted in the communities and already have structure to reach out people,” said Reems.

In fact, many churches are working as liaisons to formerly incarcerated youth, people with mental health problems and those who do not have place to stay.  Rev. Jasper Lowery, of Urojas Ministry in downtown Oakland, said he worked with 230 youth under Measure Y funds in 2008.  “I am like a foot soldier. I go anywhere they need my help,” said Lowery.

Some of the police officers attending the conference agreed that faith-based organizations have a positive effect on Oakland.  “Faith based community definitely serves as pipeline between youth needing help and the police department,” said Captain Anthony Toribio, of the Oakland Police Department, during a workshop at the conference where he explained the police department’s effort to reduce crime among youth.

Involvement of the faith based community in crime prevention may be bringing changes in traditional churches, said several church leaders at the conference.  “I don’t even encourage kids to join the congregation. These kids needs place to stay off dangerous Oakland streets,” said Rev. Kevin Barnes, the pastor of the Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church near MacArthur BART station.  Barnes said that his church remodeled its basement to make an arcade with a PlayStation game and a place to play basketball for kids aged 2-18 years who have nowhere to go after school on Fridays.  He said he saw a 25 percent increase in the number of kids who come to his church on Fridays since he started the program in May 2008. “More churches have to get out of the box and reach out to their communities,” said Barnes.

The homicide investigation into the disappearance of Fremont boy Hasanni Campbell continues amid reports that his foster parents have left the area. On Tuesday, The Oakland Tribune reported that Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell had moved out of their Fremont rental home a month ago, and that Ross may be in Arizona. The article stated that Jennifer Campbell’s mother, Pamela Clark, does not know where she is.

John Burris, the Oakland attorney who had been advising the couple, said he was unaware they have allegedly left the area. “I know nothing,” he said. “I didn’t know they were gone.”

Missing Fremont child Hasanni Campbell. Photo courtesy Oakland Police Department

Press spokesman Officer Jeffrey Thomason of the Oakland Police Department could not comment on what impact the departure could have on police proceedings because “the case is still under investigation,” he said.

Hasanni Campbell, who has cerebral palsy, has been missing since August 10, 2009. Ross claimed Hasanni went missing when he left the boy in a car behind Shuz, a Rockridge shoe store on College Avenue, where Jennifer Campbell worked. So far, the OPD has released no evidence linking the boy to that location. The couple was arrested on suspicion of murder Aug. 28, but was released when prosecutors declined to file charges against them.

The Citizens for the Lost Society, a local group that helps search for missing people, is planning a rally in front of the Oakland Police Department on February 10, the six-month anniversary of Campbell’s disappearance. Sheri-Lyn Miller, a San Leandro print-shop owner, helped found the group after she began donating t-shirts and flyers to help find missing persons. Miller estimates the rally will draw a crowd of 100 to 150 people, including city council members and supporters of Oscar Grant, the Hayward man shot and killed by a BART police officer on January 1, 2009.

Participants are invited to come make signs for the rally at Miller’s San Leandro print shop on Saturday, February 6 between 12 and 6 p.m.

Miller has not had contact with either Ross or Jennifer Campbell “since Louis Ross was released from jail about four months ago,” she said. “They should be looking for him. They haven’t been.”

Even though the OPD classified the case as a homicide, rather than a missing persons case, back in August, Miller still encourages people to look for the boy, who would now be six years old. “He was a ward of the state,” said Miller. “He is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone with a car should have a flyer for him taped in their window.”

The Oakland Police Department Crime Stoppers reward for finding Campbell is $75,000.  Anyone with information regarding the case can call the Oakland Police Department at (510) 777-8572 or (510) 777-3211.

Miller’s print shop is located at 15976 E. 14th St. in San Leandro