Crime
The Oakland City Council has voted not to censure District 6 councilmember Desley Brooks for allegedly interfering with the construction and operation of two recreation center projects in East Oakland. Angry community members attended the meeting Thursday night to defend Brooks. In a recent report the Alameda County Grand Jury accused Brooks of violating city rules in contracting, purchasing and hiring for the Rainbow Teen Center at 58th and International Boulevard and Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center on Krause Avenue. City…
An 11-year old Moses Kamin peers into the lens of his adoptive mother’s camera, clad in a bright yellow tank top, a faint smile below his dark brown buzz-cut.
“He looks so different now,” said Steve Masover, looking at the photo album. “But last time I saw him before the sentencing, his hair was the same.”
City and police officials expressed their surprise at Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan’s abrupt resignation, but had few details about what prompted the Wednesday morning announcement.
Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan announced Wednesday morning that he is stepping down from the department and seeking medical retirement. The abrupt resignation came moments before a scheduled news conference with Jordan and former New York City and Los Angeles Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, which was quickly canceled. Bratton was set to present a crime reduction plan that was a part of a $250,000 contract that brought in a six-member consultant panel in late January. In a letter to OPD…
Oakland resident Sableu Cabildo was diagnosed at the end of 2011 with a kind of brain cancer known as an astrocytoma. It originated on the right side of her thalamus, the lobed mass under the cerebral cortex that acts like the brain’s switchboard, regulating sensory perception and motor functions. Because of the cancer, Cabildo has been steadily losing her short-term memory and her balance. She stutters sometimes, and to be on the safe side, doesn’t drive at night anymore.
To alleviate some of the symptoms of her cancer and the harsher side affects of her medications, Cabildo, 34, has a medical marijuana prescription. It’s helped to calm her mood swings and improve her diminished appetite. It also dulls the pain from the migraine headaches caused by her disease. It lets her sleep at night.
One year ago, Brandy Martell was fatally shot in downtown Oakland. On Monday, the one-year anniversary of her death, a candlelight vigil was held at Franklin and 13th, the scene of Martell’s murder.
Allison Briscoe-Smith, the director of the Center for the Vulnerable Child at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, sees consequences in Oakland’s violence that extend far beyond the victims to become a public health issue for the entire community.
He might direct the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country, but Steve DeAngelo isn’t scared of the government’s attempts to shut it down.
“The federal government has thrown everything they had at us and we met them and we pushed back,” DeAngelo said, referring to Harborside Health Center, where he serves as founder and executive director. “It’s a drug war machine that’s bound for extinction.”
Several dozen people gathered on the steps of City Hall ahead of Tuesday’s city council meeting to show support for a resolution to fund the West Oakland Job Resource Center.