Safety
Commissioner Tara Anderson described the policy as “one of the most progressive use of force policies in the country.” But some advocates say the policy does not go far enough to change the department’s practices.
The Mobile Evaluation Team (MET), an expanding crisis response unit in Oakland, is one example of fledgling efforts to meet the city’s rising need for mental health crisis services.
Oakland residents gathered this past weekend to reflect on the past year since the death of Nia Wilson.
When Oakland Fire Department (OFD) Captain Christopher Foley and his coworkers learned that one of them had been killed in a San Jose shooting, not long after 36 people died in the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, they needed help—and found it in the department’s peer support program.
Tuesday night’s Oakland Public Safety Committee meeting’s main agenda item—reviewing a report about holding a special election to amend the regulations that govern the Oakland Police Commission—was initially upstaged by jarring testimony from former Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. about his arrest last week. Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan introduced the issue for the committee to address. “Our colleague, former Councilmember Wilson Riles, was arrested—” Kaplan began, but was interrupted by members of the crowd yelling, “brutalized!” “And brutalized, and improperly treated,…
The Oakland City Council voted earlier this month to move forward with a new plan for preventing violence. This is the latest development in the city’s ongoing efforts to establish the new Department of Violence Prevention.
In Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, tension has been brewing as neighbors push city officials to evict people from a homeless encampment, which they say endangers children walking to school and creates health hazards. The camp on Bond Street, where around 12 people live, sits between 42nd and High Streets. The camp consists of a mix of canopies and camping tents shielded from the street by a row of old cars. It abuts the fenced yards of people’s homes and is across…
On the otherwise quiet and dimly-lit Clay Street, a group of roughly 50 people gathered for a candlelit vigil in front of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Oakland headquarters on Thursday evening. Protestors held tea light candles as they gathered around speakers, who led the crowd through moments of somber observance, followed by chanting: “PG&E is a convicted felon!” referring to a ruling by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) that PG&E was responsible for the…
On Wednesday afternoon, Oakland residents prepared for the power to go out, anticipating cuts that were initially expected to begin in Alameda County at noon. Parts of the Oakland hills and East Oakland are the most likely to be affected by the outages, which Pacific Gas and Electric estimates will affect 32,680 county residents. PG&E officials plan to cut power to parts of more than 30 Northern California counties as a wildfire prevention measure. This decision followed the last two…