Amalya Dubrovsky

Cambodian refugee community in Oakland targeted in rising ICE sweeps

They are the 1.5 generation. That’s how Rhummanee Hang, an outreach coordinator with the Center for Empowering Refugees & Immigrants (CERI), a mental health services nonprofit for Southeast Asian refugees in Oakland, refers to the generation of Cambodians who were born in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, the brutal communist regime that held power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During those four years, an estimated 2 million people died. Many were executed or worked to death by the…

Arrest of former Oakland councilmember sparks outrage at committee meeting

Tuesday night’s Oakland Public Safety Committee meeting’s main agenda item—reviewing a report about holding a special election to amend the regulations that govern the Oakland Police Commission—was initially upstaged by jarring testimony from former Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. about his arrest last week.  Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan introduced the issue for the committee to address. “Our colleague, former Councilmember Wilson Riles, was arrested—” Kaplan began, but was interrupted by members of the crowd yelling, “brutalized!” “And brutalized, and improperly treated,…

Oaklanders grab coffee with cops (and horses)

Oakland Police Department (OPD) officer Michael Tacchini loves caramel macchiatos. They aren’t his favorite, but he likes to get them when he’s in a “good mood,” he said. Tacchini and about a dozen other OPD officers were in pretty high spirits as they gathered Wednesday afternoon at a Starbucks near the Oakland Coliseum BART station. They all had volunteered to participate in “Coffee with a Cop Day,” a nationwide event that provides residents with the opportunity to meet and speak…

OPD struggling to hire Oakland-based officers

Tuesday night’s Oakland Public Safety Committee meeting revealed that the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is still struggling to hire officers who live in Oakland, despite new recruitment efforts, and that the majority of last year’s $500,000 traffic safety grant went towards paying officers to work overtime to police traffic violations.