Police
Four teenagers have been arrested for the May 20 murder of Fruitvale gardener Antonio Torres, Oakland police said Tuesday. Police said the young men, ages 15-19, targeted Torres for his gold chain and his iPod, and that they are also suspects in other burglaries.
Both sets of defendants in two of the highest-profile Oakland murder cases of the summer pled not guilty in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday afternoon.
Rockridge residents, many who feel they are left on their own while a reduced and overworked police force focuses on violent crime, spoke of their concerns with crime in the area at a meeting Thursday night.
Berkeley police officers have arrested Berkeley resident Mandisa Monroe, age 33, in connection with a series of tire slashings that damaged 74 cars in the area along California Street on the Oakland/Berkeley border, the Berkeley Police Department announced Thursday morning.
The third Chief of Police for the Oakland Unified School District in two months started his first day on the job Tuesday.
The Oakland Police Department’s Special Victims Unit has released an urgent appeal asking for help in its search for a woman who went missing last month.
Horace Mann Elementary School in East Oakland was locked down by school officials this afternoon while the Oakland Police Department conducted a series of arrests at a nearby home.
About two dozen protesters jammed the entrance of the Oakland Unified School District’s office building near Lake Merritt on Wednesday afternoon, demanding the dismissal of recently-appointed OUSD interim police chief Barhin Bhatt, who was involved in the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Raheim Brown earlier this year. Bhatt was appointed to head the district’s small police force earlier this month after the previous chief stepped down.
The Oakland Police Department has issued a community alert regarding an increase in street robberies targeting people wearing gold chains. According to the OPD, most of the victims of the jewelry-snatchings have been women who were approached by someone on foot who pulled the chain from their neck and ran away.