Crime
The front gate at the Oakland branch of weGrow, the country’s first “out of the closet” company that sells indoor marijuana growing equipment, is now locked up and its former owners are embroiled in a series of heated legal battles. The 15,000 square foot warehouse facility, located two miles away from the Oakland International Airport, opened last October with a press conference at which a number of city officials, including Oakland Mayor Jean Quan (a city councilmember at that time), showed up to support the store in front of the national media.
The Oakland Police Department is seeking information about the whereabouts of 31-year-old Oakland resident Douglas K. Yim in connection with a shooting on Saturday evening that left one man dead and another wounded.
More than 300 people convened at the North Oakland Senior Center on Saturday morning to share their concerns – most of them budget-related – with Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and Councilmember Jane Brunner.
Community members rallied alongside city leaders Thursday evening to protest the sexual exploitation of minors, shutting down 17th Ave at International Blvd in Oakland’s San Antonio neighborhood — a neighborhood where residents say encountering hookers, pimps and johns is a day-to-day part of life.
Several local publications including The San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross column and Alameda’s The Island are reporting that Oakland City Attorney John Russo has been selected as Alameda’s new city manager
Just as the hearing for the proposed Fruitvale gang injunction got underway on Tuesday, police officers entered the court and arrested Javier Quintero—one of the 40 alleged Norteño gang members named in the injunction—for a parole violation. Quintero was the first defendant to testify in the hearing, which began in mid-February, and has not missed a single day of watching the proceedings.
Newly appointed Chief Probation Officer David Muhammad spent an evening with community leaders discussing his plans for revamping the juvenile justice system in Alameda County.
After the defense spent three days questioning Oakland police officer Douglass Keely, who was involved in creating the list of the 40 alleged Norteño gang members named in the Fruitvale gang injunction, prosecutors finally got a chance to cross examine him on Tuesday. The crux of their examination involved showing the judge dozens of photos of the alleged gang members’ tattoos and gang clothing, as well as graffiti in the Fruitvale neighborhood, that were meant to demonstrate that the defendants had been correctly identified as active gang members.
Limited staffing and budget constraints hamper Oakland’s recently reinstated problem-solving officers, Deputy Chief Eric Breshears said in a report presented to the City Council Tuesday. Breshears said the police department is optimistic about the program but has faced challenges in implementation since its reinstatement in January.