Safety
What happens when you shine a high-powered laser pointer at a plane cruising through the sky? Well, you can disorient the pilot, and according to the San Jose Mercury News, it happens so often that there’s a name for it: “laser strikes.” In fact, Oakland Airport ranks fourth in the nation in incidents of laser strikes, and San Jose Airport comes in fifth. There haven’t been any crashes caused by laster strikes, but some incidents during landings have forced pilots…
Wearing royal blue shirts that said, “A little boy not forgotten, Hasanni Campbell,” a smattering of people representing the non-profit organization Citizens for the Lost gathered in front of the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in downtown Oakland to remember the missing Fremont boy on Tuesday.
It’s been one year since Hasanni Campbell went missing. The little boy, who had cerebral palsy and used braces to walk, would be six years old now. The Oakland Police Department still considers the boy’s foster father, Louis Ross, a primary suspect in his disappearance.
Carrying bowls of pasta salad, watermelon, and meat to grill, on Tuesday night people left their houses and streamed into hundreds of neighborhood gatherings being hosted throughout the city as part of National Night Out—a nationwide block party that encourages people to get to know their neighbors and promotes community safety.
Francisco Ballesteros is a modern-day shepherd, but the sheep and goats he’s tending aren’t being raised for meat or milk—they’re here to prevent the spread of fire.
Since the layoff of 80 police officers, Oakland’s policing strategy has changed, and neighborhood safety groups are grappling with how to react. The Oakland Police Department plans to focus more on emergencies and less on community problem-solving and the investigation of non-violent crimes.
Wearing a white tank top spotted with blood, Susan Harman, a 69-year-old former school principal and resident of Oakland, told a crowd of reporters that she was a victim of police aggression during the protests following the July 8 Johannes Mehserle verdict. The tank top she was wearing was the same one she had on that night when, she said, while peacefully protesting she was pushed down, hit on the head with a baton and arrested.
As the Oakland Police Department works to identify the people involved in the property damage and looting during the protest following the Johannes Mehserle verdict, one anarchist, who came from out of state and was arrested that night, speaks about anarchists’ role in the Oakland riot and the “grassroots global civil war.”
The Oakland Police Department has released photos of people allegedly looting and destroying property during the protests following last week’s verdict in the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant. They published 15 photos on the department website in the hopes that citizens will come forward to identify those in the photos.