Oakland Enlists Community to Make First Friday Safe

First Friday resumed peacefully last weekend with appeals to end violence in Oakland and moments of silence to commemorate the the fatal shooting of Kiante Campbell, an 18-year-old Oakland high school student at February's street fest.

I like the straightforward tone set by newly-elected Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who stood on a stage and called out: "If you love Oakland, thrown your peace signs up."

Oaklanders, including Mayor Jean Quan, wore green and white shirts that read "Respect Our City". The street festival, which draws thousands to its mix of food, music and arts and crafts, resumed in a smaller area with a shortened time format after the shooting that left one dead and three wounded last month.

Some elected officials still ask if Oakland is focusing its limited police resources at the right issues - directing traffic around the First Friday crowds in Uptown rather keeping the peace in some of Oakland's more crime-ridden neighborhoods.

It's not an easy question to answer. First Friday and the Art Murmur movement that organized the monthly open houses for galleries and clothing stores between Broadway and Telegraph Avenues from 19th to 25th Streets had grown from strength to strength, drawing Oaklanders and visitors from around the Bay.

The shooting erupted nearly an hour after the Feb. 1 street fest ended. An account in the Feb. 27 Chronicle still cannot pinpoint who shot Campbell, but he was one of three partiers who drew guns at each other at 20th and Telegraph, a few feet away from one of First Friday's most popular dessert vans that straddles that intersection.

For last week's First Friday, authorities shrank the area of the street fest to five blocks along Broadway and Telegraph,. curtailed the festivities to close by 9 pm, one hour earlier, and strictly enforced laws against drinking in the street.

"After what happened last month, we knew that we needed to change," a First Fridays spokesman said. "We had to look at how we were addressing this and recognize the gravity of it."

The Chronicle quoted a third generation East Oaklander, Lukas Brekke-Miesner, as saying, "We're not involved because violence happened at First Friday. We;re involved because this city has a violence problem."

Where First Fridays go remains to be seen. I want them to work, I want to take more friends to disabuse them of their bias about violence-prone Oakland. I guess it's up to all of us to make this effort.

Do You Need To Carry A Gun Around In Your House To Feel Safe?

I'm not judging. I'm just asking.

I was at an Open House last weekend when someone from San Francisco asked if living in Oakland was as bad as everyone says. I live a couple blocks away in the low hills of Oakland and I said, no. I felt safe, it was a great neighborhood. I didn't mention the body of a 31-year-old Stockton man found dumped a quarter-mile from my house on a Friday in January when there were four shootings in the city.

I was thinking of the two years I have lived in Oakland since I've been back, and how much I enjoy the daily pleasures of a good-sized city with nice neighborhoods, clean streets and positive vibes. Oakland is this city, but it's also a place where, sadly, in other neighborhoods, people have resorted to fight crime with their own street patrols because they feel they cannot rely on police to help stem a wave of burglaries in their homes.

A television news team recently followed a half dozen residents in the East Oakland neighborhood of Arcadia Park, about eight miles from where I live, who are fighting crime with their own street patrols rather than calling on police.

They've been hit with 25 burglaries in the past two months, and a KPIX news team found neighbors taking matters into their own hands. "You have to walk around your house with a gun to feel safe here," is how Alaska Tarvins of the Arcadia Park Board of Directors described his situation.

It's an esoteric reference...but if you've seen the movie, you'll see where I'm going with this.

One home had been burglarized twice in 24 hours, and "wanted posters" of photographs of young men have appeared on lamp posts in connection with the robberies.

Citywide, Oakland burglaries are up 40 percent - roughly 33 every single day in 2012, according to a KGO news story. I still love this city, and I admire the guts of neighbors who will take steps to make their neighborhoods safer, like they are in Arcadia Park.

I'm not the sort of person who wants to have a gun around the house, nor am I of the opinion that if I had a gun, I (or anyone around me) would be much safer than they are now. I'm not against responsible people owning guns, but...having lots of guns hanging around gives me the willies. It's just not for me. That said - I'm starting to wonder how living here, or how living in Arcadia Park, might changes one's viewpoints on gun ownership. They certainly seem to think it's in their best interest.

What do you think?

Do you keep or carry a gun? Is it a necessary accoutrement (how's that for a big word?) for living safely in the city these days?

Mayor Quan Promotes a Class For Adults - On How To Pick Locks. Really?

This one defies belief.

In a city where the murder rate is high, burglaries are soaring and neighbors are forming vigilante street patrols (more on that bit tomorrow!), Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was out there this week promoting a class that teaches people how to pick locks? Come on, Oakland, we can do a bit better than this!

Yes, she has apologized, and yes, the class she promoted is geared towards people who misplace their keys and are locked out. But really, such blundering only inflames the city's public image and is easy fodder for all the Bay Area news outlets and the eWallStreeter.

No, really, officer - I totally lost my keys. I'm a total klutz like that. That's why I always make sure NEVER to misplace my lockpicking set.

Personally, I like the SF Weekly blog's take, and headline: WTF? Mayor Jean Quan Promotes Lock-Picking Classes, Gives Young Burglars a Chance to Suceed

Also take time to read the comments that followed the SF Weekly entry. Priceless.

Should Oakland Downsize First Friday?

First Friday & Art Murmur are good. Shootings are bad. When those two issues collide...

I watched several Oakland City Councilmembers the other week debate whether to cut back on First Friday street fairs (also known as Art Murmur) after a young man was fatally shot and three others wounded on February 1 at the end of what had been another crowded and busy monthly downtown festival.

Councilmembers Larry Reid and Desley Brooks said the street fair should be scaled back to the art walk it once was for neighborhood galleries, and that Oakland can't afford to shift 30 officers from their regular neighborhood beats to provide beefed up security for the monthly event. Lynette Gibson McElhaney defended the First Friday, pointing out the positive publicity it has brought Oakland and warning councilmembers not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

These monthly events bring thousands of people to the city's uptown and downtown districts - the music, the food, the dancing and street theater - and the economic activity is vibrant and spreading. The Trib reports that the next First Friday event will be smaller - but I hope the city's reaction will be moderate. I always have time for Robert Gammon at the East Bay Express, who says no one called for an end to football at Candlestick Park when two fans were shot in 2011. He believes it would be a mistake for Oakland to downsize or eliminate First Fridays, and I agree with him.

What do you think? Should we downsize First Friday in the name of preventing crime and other mishaps?

Can We Stop Shooting Each Other, Please?

There's crime in the big city. Then, there's our big city...

Image Source: StopHoustonGangs.org

When I moved back here a couple years ago, I knew there were a lot of murders in Oakland, but I figured (perhaps naively) that they were mostly gang-related. A recent outbreak of shootings in Oakland, less than a month after the Newtown, CT elementary school shootings, bring the issue of gun violence closer to home and impossible to ignore.

I was driving home on Friday afternoon last week when I came across a police roadblock in Glenview, Oakland. Police had roped off the corner at Canon and Wellington where earlier that afternoon, the body of a young man had apparently been dumped by the roadside. His name was Larry Lovett, he was 31 from Stockton and formerly of Oakland - no apparent ties to the neighborhood in the lower hills of Oakland, just dumped there. That was only the beginning. Within a few hours three other murders were recorded in Oakland, and by the end of the weekend, there had been 15 shootings, all in one city - ours!

Theories abound about the firearms rampage that left four dead in one day. Was it rival gangs duking it out? Apparently the same type of AR-15 assault rifles outfitted with high-capacity drum magazines (what was used in two of these four shootings) have been used in what the East Bay Express says is an ongoing feud between the Case Gang and Money Team.

A few weeks earlier, in the same neighborhood of Park Boulevard, 27-year-old Clifford Snead was shot dead after getting off a bus. He was the father of a young son. No other explanation. It doesn't make sense.

A new coalition called SAVE, which stands for Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, is holding local rallies at murder sites around Oakland to raise awareness.

Zachary Carey, pastor of the True Vine Ministries, is working with SAVE to pray at these sites. "When you hear about violence in America on the news, the tagline associated with it is gang-related,” Carey said. “Then if you're living in Montclair, Piedmont, Walnut Creek then you're like, ‘I'm not involved in a gang, that'll never happen to me.’ But the reality is people that are being murdered now are not gang-related, they're innocent bystanders, they're collateral damage. So if they can be collateral damage, guess what, so can you and I.”

Carey's words are pretty chilling...if that doesn't make you think it's time to get involved, what does?