Blogs

Community protests police shooting and gang injunction

Community activist groups held marches Thursday to protest Monday’s fatal police shooting of East Oakland barber Derrick Jones and the recent gang injunction by the Oakland Police Department. Derrick Jones, 37, was shot to death Monday by two police officers near the Kwik Cut Barber Shop on Bancroft Avenue, which he owned. Later in the week, Oakland police served notices to at least 10 people accused of being gang members in an injunction filed by the city attorney Wednesday. Dozens…

City council to vote on municipal ID card program

Oakland City Council members will vote Tuesday whether to implement a Municipal Identification Card program that would provide valid identification to Oakland residents.

The program, which is modeled off of San Francisco’s City ID Card program, will offer identification cards to residents who would not otherwise be able to get a state or federal form of identification, including undocumented immigrants.

Pretrial motions set to begin in journalist murder case

Pretrial motions are set to begin as early as next week for former Your Black Muslim Bakery owner Yusuf Bey IV, 24, and bakery associate Antoine Makey. The men are being charged with three counts of murder, including orchestrating the murder of Oakland Post reporter Chauncey Bailey, who was investigating the bakery’s finances when he was shot and killed on his way to work in August of 2007.

Get all of Oakland North’s Mehserle trial coverage; Follow us tomorrow

After his July conviction for involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle will be sentenced Friday morning. His punishment could range from probation to 14 years in state prison. The Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who will sentence Mehserle will also consider his attorney’s request for a new trial. Oakland North will provide coverage throughout the day of the sentencing, as well as of gatherings scheduled to take place in Oakland. You…

Last minute push: “Sí en Prop 19”

Just Say Now, a collaboration of activist blog Firedoglake.com and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) working to pass marijuana legalization, is spending the final hours before the election reaching out to Spanish-speaking Latino voters. “We’ve received urgent requests from Hispanic community leaders,” Michael Whitney, the blog’s digital strategy director, said in a press release. The Spanish speaking Latino community is not well informed on Proposition 19, the ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana in California, according to Just Say…

Nine shot at Oakland Halloween party

Bullets hit nine party-goers at a Halloween party in downtown Oakland just after midnight on Sunday, according to several media reports. At 12:01am, a gunman opened fire and hit several bystanders.

Bicycle and pedestrian trails will improve with recent $10.2 million grant

Representatives John Garamendi, Barbara Lee and George Miller, along with East Bay Regional Park District Officials, will be at the Oakland Airport/Coliseum BART Station today at noon to celebrate a recent grant to improve bicycle and pedestrian trails in the Bay Area. Last week, the US Department of Transportation awarded the Park District with $10.2 million.  The grant will allow for the closure of critical gaps along pedestrian and bicycle trails and the construction of new trails.  The goal is…

Happening now: Brunner and laid off police support local ballot measures

Councilmember Jane Brunner, a group of laid off Oakland police officers, and Youth Uprising are rallying support for local ballot Measures BB and W at an event at 5pm tonight. You can find them at Chabot Elementary School, located at 6686 Chabot Road, Oakland. Measure BB is the “Measure Y Fix” that will strike the police staffing requirements that currently prevent the city from collecting The Fire Safety and Violence Prevention tax. Measure W is a telephone line tax of $1.99…