Safety
A new bill authored by Oakland State Assemblyman Sandre Swanson could lift the ban preventing former drug offenders from receiving food stamps. “It is the right thing to do,” Swanson said, adding that California invests millions of dollars supporting prisoners that are released, only to find them returning within a couple of years.
Few know what lurks the depths of the murky, brackish, crustacean-filled Lake Merritt. Few know what beastly beast, what cryptid, what leviathan, what man-eating monster could be swimming below, slithering through those fetid waters. Few know… but many have seen.
The Oakland Police Department is looking for suspects and the motive that led to a four-person shooting on the 800 block of 32nd Street in West Oakland on Monday.
The Oakland Police Department is asking the public to help identify a suspect in the June 4 murder of 50-year-old Oakland resident Leo Dunson. Dunson died from a single gunshot wound. The incident took place on the 2900 block of High Street near the Maxwell Park area of Oakland.
Oakland North previously reported on a home invasion sexual assault that took place on the 900 block of Apgar Street in West Oakland on the evening of June 7. During this incident, a woman was sexually assaulted by a man who had broken into her home.
Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles jail shortly after midnight on Monday, after having served a total of 365 days in the Los Angeles Central Jail. This included his time served while incarcerated during his trial and while awaiting sentencing.
Oakland activists organized a peaceful march from the Fruitvale BART station to Frank Ogawa Plaza on Sunday night to protest the upcoming release of ex-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle from jail. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last July for the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant, and sentenced that November to two years in prison.
In an email sent to press Friday night, the Oakland City Attorney’s office announced that Chief Assistant City Attorney Barbara Parker will be temporarily stepping into the city’s top legal job to fill the vacancy left by John Russo, who begins his new career as Alameda’s City Manager on June 13.
In 2005, Elijah Adams, a 10-year-old North Oakland boy, died from meningococcal disease, an often-deadly form of bacterial meningitis. Just a year earlier, 20-year-old UC Berkeley women’s basketball player Alisa Marie Lewis had gone to the emergency room early in the morning complaining of a severe headache, rash and flu-like symptoms. By the afternoon she was dead from the same disease.