Crime
As Oakland awaits news from the Los Angeles sentencing of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, downtown businesses are preparing today for the possibility of violence. Storefronts around Frank Ogawa Plaza are boarded up including the Oakland police Internal Affairs office, the offices of Youth Radio and the Men’s Wearhouse and Foot Locker stores nearby.
Amid a wave of Democratic victories in California that defied major gains for Republicans in the rest of the nation, the race to become the state’s next attorney general is so evenly split—between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Steve Cooley—that its winner may not be known for weeks.
Probation or prison? On Friday morning, the sentence of Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Oscar Grant III, will rest in the hands of one man, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry.
In the same downtown court building that housed the O.J. Simpson trial, Perry is expected to juggle a wide range of sentencing options ranging from parole to 14 years in California state prison.
As Oakland awaits this Friday’s sentencing of Johannes Mehserle, civic leaders and residents alike are working together to keep the city’s reaction peaceful. The former BART police officer was convicted in July of involuntary manslaughter in the January, 2009, shooting death of Oscar Grant. In the wake of Grant’s death, as well as of Mehserle’s conviction this summer, protests in downtown Oakland turned violent.
As a medical marijuana patient, Ryan Landers relies on the drug to stomach a single meal each day. Despite his support of previous landmark legislation, Landers has taken a stand against Proposition 19, on the state ballot next Tuesday, which would legalize several marijuana related activities.
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.
Oakland North reporters Abby Baird and Teresa Chin asked a former Bay Area police officer, a smoke shop employee, a retired emergency physician, and a Berkeley parent to share their best guesses about what will happen if California passes Proposition 19, the measure to legalize marijuana for recreational use.
On Thursday, the Oakland City Attorney’s Office announced it was suing four people for their alleged role in the looting and vandalism that followed the protests after the Johannes Mehserle verdict on July 8, 2010.
These marijuana numbers and statistics can provide an important general overview of what our country is facing with pot and Proposition 19, the California measure to legalize marijuana on the November 2nd ballot. To take you through trivia about drug arrests, marijuana use, and our attitudes about legalization, Oakland North built this interactive overview of doobie data.