Police
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.
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.
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.
The woman accused of killing Hayward nursing student Michelle Le was found guilty of first-degree murder Monday afternoon in Alameda County Superior Court. Le’s former friend, Giselle Esteban, 28, will receive 25 years to life in prison, said prosecutor Butch Ford, deputy district attorney for Alameda County
Twenty people from fifteen of the most violent groups in Oakland gathered in one room last week, as city officials, law enforcement, and community members appealed to them to stop shooting as part of the city’s latest violence prevention effort.
On the night of the one-year anniversary of the police raid on the first Occupy Oakland encampment, a crowd of Occupy Oakland protesters zig-zagged on a march through the downtown before returning to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where they declared that they planned to hold an all-night vigil. The six-hour protest Thursday night, which drew no more than 300 protesters, was noticeably smaller than Occupy protests last year, which drew thousands. Throughout the night, as the march moved from the plaza…
A year ago today, in a dawn raid, Oakland police cleared the downtown encampment that was drawing national attention as the center of Occupy Oakland. This story reconstructs that raid and the remarkable, controversial sequence of public disruptions that held the city’s attention for many weeks.
The one-year anniversary commemoration of the first early morning police raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza has been quiet so far, and a press conference sponsored by Occupy Oakland scheduled to take place at noon failed to materialize.