Leaders Differ Over What’s Driving Oakland’s Fluctuating Crime Rates
“Morris” is a stocky, friendly young man who works in the cafeteria of the Youth Uprising community center. I meet him there in East Oakland, a neighborhood that police say bears the brunt of the...
View ArticleOakland Residents Plead: Pay Attention to Killings
The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut has opened a new national dialogue about guns and gun violence. In Oakland, where a recent violent crime surge has residents...
View ArticleInterview: William Bratton on Stop-and-Frisk and Working With Oakland Police
Former Los Angeles and New York City police chief William Bratton is officially on his way to Oakland to help advise the city’s struggling police force, which is contending with a sharp rise in...
View ArticleAmong Oakland’s Dead, What’s a ‘Typical’ Case?
Tracking gun crimes in Oakland, the numbers are dizzying. In the past five years, there were more than 550 homicides in Oakland, most in shootings. Last month, a grandmother and a 15-year-old girl were...
View ArticleOakland’s Gun Problem: 11 Firearm Crimes a Day
Oakland has a gun problem. In 2012 alone, 2,091 armed robberies and 783 shootings were reported. Shootings accounted for the vast majority of the city’s 131 homicides. Add to that illegal gun...
View ArticleFormer Oakland Gang Member Talks Guns, Race, Retaliation, and Bratton
Oakland is a city with its share of struggles: crime, gun violence, under-performing schools. Kevin Grant is working to change that. He is a former Oakland gang member who now works against youth...
View ArticleNPR Covers Oakland Homicides
National Public Radio has picked up on the Oakland crime story and sent it out over the country’s airwaves. On Thursday NPR ran correspondent Richard Gonzales’ story about the surge in the city’s...
View ArticleOakland’s Other Crime Problem: Unsolved Homicides
On a recent morning, an ex-convict named Debonaire Dobbz sat shackled to a chair in an Oakland courtroom, charged with murder in a shooting a year ago. “This is not a whodunit. This is not a whodunit...
View ArticleOakland Students March to Protest Gun Violence
Elementary school students and teachers from New Highland Academy in Oakland marched to the local library Thursday … with a police escort. They used to take the six-block walk every third Thursday, but...
View ArticleOakland Police Consultant Defends ‘Stop, Ask and Frisk’
Police can’t control crime without stopping and frisking suspects, says William Bratton, a consultant Oakland officials have tapped to cope with the city’s surging crime rate. Speaking in an interview...
View ArticleOakland Awaits First Friday: Sorrow, Anxiety Mix With Anticipation for...
For the last several years, the first Friday of every month has been a date Oaklanders, fans of Oakland, art aficionados, and connoisseurs of community celebrations have all looked forward to. Starting...
View ArticleIn Oakland, Trying to Stop Violence Before It Starts
Tange Harris found herself in the middle of a bad situation a few months ago. When she stopped by her mother’s house in East Oakland, her nephew was out front with two of his kids. Then a group of...
View Article‘Men of Influence’ Bring Parenting to Oakland’s Toughest Streets
Arnoldo Garay is coming off a bad year. Last year, when he was 16, Arnoldo said he was drinking, selling drugs and hanging out with a dangerous crowd. Then he fell into a dark depression. “It was...
View ArticleCalifornia Program Hunts Down Illegal Gun Owners
By Elaine Korry California has some of the most comprehensive gun control laws in the nation. It is also the only state with an active program to disarm people who own guns illegally. Since 2007, the...
View ArticleIn Oakland, Shortage of 911 Dispatchers Makes a Hectic Job Even More So
When the year is up, Oakland will have logged more than a half-million 911 calls, an average of about 1,400 a day,
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