Crime
The Oakland Police Officer’s Association — the police union, a nonprofit organization representing the city’s police officers — has for years dabbled in the political scene, endorsing candidates and spending thousands of dollars each election cycle advocating for candidates OPOA leaders believe will best address public safety and police concerns.
Cherilynn Abaye, who purchased four tickets to the Katt Williams comedy show at the Oakland Oracle Arena last Friday night, says she was excited to see him perform. But after a string of bizarre events onstage that included Williams confronting a heckler in the crowd, Williams taking his own clothes off and Williams trying to fight at least three audience members, the act ended after just 10 minutes, leaving Abaye furious.
Discrimination and violence showed no boundaries at Friday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance at the Oakland Peace Center. Mexico, Brazil and India. Maryland, Florida and Louisiana. Turkey and Canada. All these are states and countries—their names read aloud in melancholy succession at the event–in which transgendered women were murdered this year.
California voters passed Proposition 35 by 81 percent, but there is little agreement among law enforcement agencies, legal experts and sex workers about how the initiative will affect the sex industry, especially with regard to the owners of indoor places of work like brothels, escort services and massage parlors.
Many undocumented immigrants in Oakland, and nationally, do not have official identification that is accepted by police, banks or even some healthcare centers. But under a program expected to get underway this winter, Oakland has joined a handful of cities in creating a municipal ID—with one apparently unprecedented new component. Oakland’s Muni ID, if all goes according to plan, will also be usable as a debit card.
This month, the city council’s Public Works Committee will consider a new graffiti ordinance, which aims to bolster Oakland’s current vandalism laws by inflicting harsher penalties on offenders and offering support for property owners frequently targeted by graffiti writers. The “Graffiti Enforcement Program” proposed by City Attorney Barbara Parker and District 3 representative Nancy Nadel, would enhance a section of the city’s municipal code which presently only addresses graffiti abatement procedures and prohibits the sale and possession of pressurized paint cans and markers to minors.
In a federal court document filed Thursday, city officials rejected a motion by local attorneys for a federal takeover of the Oakland Police Department, pushing instead for the creation of two new positions that would monitor the department’s progress in enacting the last 10 of 51 reforms ordered by a federal judge in 2003.
A group of men robbed CBS cameraman Greg Welk outside Oakland Tech yesterday afternoon, hit him in the face, and took his camera before fleeing in a car. “Photographer Greg Welk and reporter Anne Makovec had just finished their noon report on the passage of Prop 30 in front of Oakland Technical High School on the 4300 block of Broadway,” read a copyrighted statement on the KPIX website. “After the live shot, an unknown number of men rushed up, punched Welk…
In the Oakland Police Department’s latest attempt to deal with shrinking resources and fewer staff, Oakland police officers are now getting some help from the CHP to enforce traffic laws.