Safety
Dr. Brigid McCaw was diligently working her way through medical school while her sister was busy concealing a secret. Despite the summer heat in their Denver home, McCaw’s sister bundled up in high-necked layers. The bruises along her abdomen became difficult to conceal during pregnancy, but her own physician never questioned them. Immersed in her studies at the University of California, San Francisco almost 1,000 miles away, McCaw never even saw the black and blue marks.
More than 700 people filled the gymnasium at Laney College on Saturday for the Neighborhood Safety Summit, a day of discussions about crime and violence in Oakland hosted by Mayor Jean Quan, who presented a new crime reduction plan that she said will focus on the city’s most violent streets.
The firefighters put on their headphones, fastened their seatbelts, turned on their lights and sirens, and peeled out of the garage towards the narrow, steep road. With notepads and video cameras in tow, reporters were getting a feel for what it was like to ride in a fire truck during the massive fire that devastated the Oakland Hills 20 years ago.
The Oakland Police Department has a new chief—at least for the next several months. Howard Jordan, formerly the department’s assistant chief, was sworn in as interim police chief at City Hall on Thursday afternoon. Jordan wore a dark gray suit and stood with his right hand raised as Mayor Jean Quan swore him in in front of an audience of about twenty officers. The ceremony ended with loud applause from the officers and a hug from Quan.
Despite the controversial nature of gang injunctions, the City of Oakland is considering implementing additional injunctions throughout the city.
At a tense press conference at City Hall shortly after delivering his letter of resignation to the City Council, Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts criticized a bureaucracy that he said failed to “let the Chief be the Chief.”
Oakland drivers on Interstate 580 had a scary encounter with a police pursuit of a stolen Honda Accord Saturday morning, as the driver sped down the wrong side of the highway. The suspect and a police officer, whose names have not yet been released, were injured in the high-speed chase. Both received medical attention. Two Oakland North reporters, en route to Lakeview Elementary for a school closures community gathering, narrowly missed a head-on collision with the wrong-way Honda on Interstate…
In a move that will in effect ban a chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) from being used in baby bottles and toddler cups manufactured or sold in California, a bill known as the Toxin-Free Infants and Toddlers Act (AB 1319) was signed into law Tuesday night by Governor Jerry Brown.
Dozens of Oakland residents approached the podium at the city council meeting Tuesday night to voice their displeasure with three items on the agenda intended to curb violence in the city – an anti-loitering law, a teen curfew, and more gang injunctions. However, the council deferred voting on these measures by sending them to the public safety committee for more in-depth review. Proponents of these hotly-debated items argue they would be valuable tools for the Oakland Police Department to clamp…