Crime
Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker has decided to double down in her efforts to secure economic and social justice for Oakland residents by doubling the divisions in her office.
“Hello, sir. What do you need today?” Braunz Courtney says with a welcoming smile, standing comfortably behind a buffet of sterile syringes and pipes.
“I need some medium sharps,” his client Vernon, 64, responds.
Savannah O’Neil says, for her, knowing someone who has battled an opioid addiction started with a family member. Most recently, she says, one of her friends had a stint at sobriety, but fatally overdosed on a combination of prescription opioids and benzodiazepine.
In this week’s episode of the Tales of Two Cities podcast, hosts Brad Bailey and Matt Beagle will be discussing loss, and stories about people moving on when something or someone important is taken away. We’ll hear about a lost Oakland bus stop so important to bus riders that they’re trying to bring it back. We’ll listen as some surprising guests in the East Bay share their favorite memories of Prince. We’ll also hear the story of an Oakland woman…
Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson got the call in the afternoon. “You better get your butt down here,” Patrisse Cullors told him. She was standing on a corner of Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza with five activists from London, each of whom had lost a family member to police violence. They were jetlagged and wearing matching T-shirts. “You’re supposed to be here,” Cullors said. A self-possessed woman with short, dreaded hair, Cullors is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Johnson is the…
Entrepreneurs from other industries are moving into the space and creating a social bubble that excludes the “underground” group.
Last year, Oakland’s homicide numbers rose for first time in two years. As a result, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) convened a town hall in Oakland.
Any deaf visitors will be directed to DeafHope, which focuses specifically on providing services to victims of domestic violence in that community. “We just feel like there really is a need,” says Aracelia Aguilar, an empowerment director with DeafHope, speaking through a relay interpreter via phone. “And we can see how people are trying to survive. There’s such limited communication.”
DeafHope was founded in 2003 by Julie Rems-Smario along with eight other women, who recognized there was a need for specialized services. Previously, says Rems-Smario, also speaking through a relay interpreter, in domestic violence cases, it was often easier for survivors to stay in an abusive home where the abuser knew sign language than to access services available for sexual assault or domestic violence victims, which were designed for the hearing community.
Men Creating Peace (MCP) is one of the few domestic violence organizations in Alameda County specifically geared towards men. Founded in 2009, the organization aims to help men who’ve been involved in violent acts adopt coping mechanisms so that they can develop healthier relationships with partners, family and their community.