Safety
For more than two decades, the automotive attractions nicknamed “sideshows” have been a dangerous and illegal ritual in Oakland, claiming many lives along the way. Often referred to a “block party on wheels,” sideshows are impromptu tire screeching, doughnut-spinning, traffic-blocking congresses of cars surrounded by a crowd of people cheering on drivers as they execute dangerous twists and turns.
On Monday night, the Oakland Police and leadership-training group Youth Uprising celebrated the city’s first “sideshow-free” summer in 20 years with a reception that highlighted the dangers of the Oakland-born tradition.
A short hearing on the status of North Oakland’s gang injunction this Thursday served as a backdrop for protest and legal maneuvering by groups opposed to the city’s newest tactic for curbing violence.
City officials announced Wednesday that an injunction is being sought against 42 alleged Norteño gang members in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, the second such action this year to fight the city’s gang problem. If approved, the injunction would allow police officers more rein in arresting the named gang members for engaging in activities—mostly illegal already—considered consistent with gang behavior.
“We are here to demand that you go back to the negotiating table. We need the officers, but we don’t have the money,” Bishop Frank Pinkard of Mosswood’s Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church said to the committee, while standing with representatives from four other faith-based organizations including the Men of Valor Academy and the Allen Temple Baptist Church.
The run-off election between John Creighton and Victoria Kolakowski for a seat on the Alameda County Superior Court shows how complicated choosing a judicial candidate can be. From evaluating each candidate’s credentials to speculating about how each might act from the bench, Alameda County voters have a lot of thinking to do if they want to avoid the dartboard approach this November.
Listen to how Oakland residents spent a day surveying conditions of the city’s parks and other recreational areas, many of which have fallen into disarray.
Today would have been Nicholas Rotolo’s 24th birthday. Rotolo, a Berkeley High School student and club hockey player, stood a brawny 6’2″ tall, weighed 220 pounds, and had no apparent health issues. But on February 5, 2004, the 17-year-old suddenly collapsed on the rink at Sharks Ice in San Jose while competing in an exhibition for his San Jose Junior Sharks team.
Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a national support group for victims of sexual abuse by religious authority figures, came together Tuesday outside the Cathedral of Christ the Light in support of a newly filed sexual battery and negligence lawsuit against Father Stephen Kiesle and the Diocese of Oakland.
Laughter, prayer, song and tears marked Saturday night’s third annual PURPLE Fundraising Gala for the families and friends of those who have lost their lives to violence. The event, organized by the Oakland-based advocacy group 1,000 Mothers to Prevent Violence, recognized two Oakland police investigators and a retired schoolteacher for having gone “beyond the call of duty to bring healing to surviving families.”