Crime
On Saturday, Youth Uprising, a not-for-profit organization that develops young leaders, celebrated its third annual For A Safe Town (FAST) festival in East Oakland in an effort to promote peace. Bounce houses, basketball tournaments, skating demos, DJs, and the savory smells of a free BBQ chicken lunch attracted a couple hundred people from the community.
Laughter, prayer, song and tears marked Saturday night’s third annual PURPLE Fundraising Gala for the families and friends of those who have lost their lives to violence. The event, organized by the Oakland-based advocacy group 1,000 Mothers to Prevent Violence, recognized two Oakland police investigators and a retired schoolteacher for having gone “beyond the call of duty to bring healing to surviving families.”
McCullum Youth Court, a student-run justice system in Oakland for first-time middle and high school-age offenders, turns 17 this Friday. That makes it older than many of the young people who serve as its lawyers, bailiffs, and clerks. But instead of a birthday party, Youth Court organizers are scrambling to invite as many people as possible to a different type of event—a fundraiser.
Police chief Anthony Batts did his best to positively portray the state of the city’s law enforcement capacity in a presentation of the Oakland Police Department’s strategic plan at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, but it was a difficult task.
The Berkeley Police Department followed three male suspects fleeing the scene of a residential burglary in Berkeley southbound into North Oakland on September 20. Two of the three suspects were caught in the area of 63rd Street and San Pablo Ave and were later identified by community members as having burglarized the residence on Alcatraz Avenue. The third suspect remains outstanding.
A new report on Latino boys and men in Oakland finds low test scores, a high dropout rate and poor preparation for the workforce. Says the lead researcher: “The gang issue is a symptom of this, not the cause.”
On Wednesday, Don Perata, former senator and mayoral candidate, hosted a breakfast with more than 50 of Oakland’s most influential religious leaders to solicit their help in addressing school truancy, one of the city’s most pressing challenges.
With a rash of non-violent crimes occurring shortly after the layoff of 80 Oakland police officers—and after the police department changed its strategy for handling non-emergency crimes—some Upper Rockridge and Montclair residents have been calling another city’s police department for help: Piedmont’s.
Oakland City Attorney John Russo joined other law enforcement officials in front of Oakland City Hall today to declare support for the marijuana legalization initiative Proposition 19, which Russo argued would give Californians “a chance to take drugs off the street corners and out of the hands of children.”