Safety

Union protest overwhelms early Oakland City Council budget talks

As the city gets ready to tackle a new two-year budget, councilmembers heard a presentation on Oakland’s fiscal future at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Whoops, jeers and the sound of a cowbell punctuated the meeting, and before the council could hear the presentation, they heard from dozens of angry union members and chants of “Enough is enough!” from the audience stalled proceedings more than once.

Youth Alive! tries to break cycle of violence in Oakland

In a Castlemont High School classroom converted into a theater for the day, seven-year-old Junior returned home from school to face his parents after receiving a bad report card. “How the hell did you get an ‘F’ in English?” the father asked. “Are you stupid?” Junior kept his head down. “You should act like a man,” the father said. And that’s where Caheri Gutierrez, a 23-year-old woman who has dedicated her life to mentoring teenagers about causes and consequences of…

Alameda County Sheriff’s drone program proves divisive

Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern’s plans to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles for law enforcement, for the collection of photographic evidence at crime scenes, and for aerial support of emergency response operations in the county have provoked debate and raised privacy concerns among residents. The sheriff’s plan, which is currently awaiting a decision from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Public Protection Committee, continues to be a divisive subject in Oakland and Berkeley. “Traditional forms of aerial surveillance are very expensive…