About a month ago, the North Oakland branch of the San Leandro-based chain Pet Food Express was hit by an armed robber. Two weeks later, it happened again, this time at the Pet Food Express Rockridge store, located in the Safeway shopping center at 51st and Broadway. According to employees, it was the same guy.

It was then that the vice president of Pet Food Express, Mark Witirol, started hearing of other armed robberies at the Rockridge shopping center. Frustrated by what he thought was a predictable pattern of crime, he wrote a letter to Mayor Ron Dellums, posting a copy on a Montclair community Yahoo group.

“For the last few months, just about every Friday night, between 5-9 p.m., one of the stores in the Safeway Center at 51st and Broadway has been robbed at gunpoint by the same person,” Witriol wrote.  The letter continued: “Since the robber’s moves can be predicted, catching him should be as easy as fishing in a barrel.”

That message was then forwarded to the Rockridge Neighborhood Watch Network, magnifying its reach, as Witriol intended.

“I have raised the alarms all over the place,” he later said in a telephone interview.

The heightened attention got results. Witriol, as well as employees at various stores in the center, said they have noticed an increased police presence at the shopping center. And Witriol said that his letter prompted an outpouring of support from other Oakland residents, who wanted to know how they could help keep watch over his store and other local businesses. Perhaps most significantly, Oakland police arrested a suspect on the charges of one North Oakland robbery and are currently investigating connections into several more.

But Witriol’s original letter didn’t get it quite right. According to Oakland CrimeView, an online website affiliated with OPD that tracks recent crime trends, there have been six robberies at the Rockridge shopping center since December — a lot, but not nearly as regular a pattern as Witriol’s letter suggested. And the Oakland police said emphatically that the robberies were the work of a several robbers, not one.

Witriol’s letter may not be the most accurate portrayal of crime in North Oakland. But it spoke worlds about the city’s perception of crime, of its mood and frustrations, suspicions and cynicism. For a community beleaguered by crime, Witriol’s letter struck a chord.

“The people of Oakland are very, very upset, and they want to do something about it,” Witriol said.

The anxiety extends to those working at the shopping center, particularly at stores that have been robbed. At Jamba Juice, the site of an armed robbery this winter, most of the employees who were working at the time have since transferred to other locations. Even employees of neighboring businesses which have not been directly affected say they are nervous.

“My co-workers are very scared,” said Jocelyn Sprinkle, a Starbucks employee. Even though her store has not been robbed, she said that there was new focus on safety procedures to guard against robberies, such as bringing in outside furniture during daylight hours.

At the Dress Barn, there is now a full-time security guard sitting at the store’s entrance. An employee at GameStop, who asked not to be named because corporate headquarters has asked its employees not to speak with the media, said he was working one evening in February when a robber, armed with an automatic pistol, came into the store, demanding money from both the cash register and the store’s customers. The employee said that now he has started violating company policy of keeping doors unlocked during business hours, choosing instead to lock the doors once the sun goes down and let customers in himself.

“If it looks like one of the people that robbed me, they’re not getting in,” he said. “If they have a covering over their face, I’m not going near the door.”

But while merchants and their employees may be on the watch for a common thread, the OPD contests Witriol’s assertion that one suspect is to blame for all of the incidents.

“There is no pattern [of crime] at 51st and Broadway,” said Officer John Cunnie, a public safety officer for the nearby 12X police beat. “There is a pattern of stores getting hit, but there is no pattern in regard to one suspect.”

What is it about that particular location? Cunnie said he believes that the shopping center presents multiple opportunities for a would-be robber because there are so many stores clustered in one area.

The GameStop employee has a different theory.

“This is actually a good part of Oakland,” he said. “They [the robbers] know the security will be lax.”

The police arrested Quentin Carter earlier this month and charged him with armed robbery further down on Broadway and a parole violation. OPD Public Information Officer Jeffrey Thomason would not say whether Carter, 27, is also suspected of armed robberies at the Safeway shopping center, but he did say that police investigators are looking into possible ties to other robberies.

Witriol and other workers at the shopping center said that they believe Carter is responsible for at least some of the robbery attempts. Witriol said he believes that his employees will likely participate in a line-up to see if they can identify the suspect as the man who robbed their store.

News of the arrest has cheered many who work at the shopping center. But not all of them.

“That’s not the only guy,” the GameStop employee said.  “It’s not the guy that robbed me back in February. It was the one guy that robbed us in November.”

For now, Mark Witriol is pleased with the new attention being focused on the armed robberies. When asked about the recent arrest, Witriol praised the Oakland police efforts.

“We were all amazingly impressed,” Witriol said, further adding that cooperation from Oakland residents and other business owners was crucial. “It’s not about whose job it is. When something is at this level, it’s everyone’s job.”

But although they say they hope that this arrest will result in charges for the robberies, some of the center employees remained pessimistic.

“I think it’s going to continue,” the GameStop employee said. “Not that these guys have jobs anyway, but people use the recession as an excuse to commit a crime. We’re going to continue to get robbed.”

East 14th Street, more commonly known as International Boulevard, runs from Lake Merritt, through the heart of East Oakland and down through San Leandro.

The boulevard cuts through Vietnamese, Mexican and African-American communities, reflecting city’s diversity. On weekends, the streets in Fruitvale and near Lake Merritt bustle with life.

Other stretches are more desolate – dust gathers in empty store windows, graffiti hints at tensions between street gangs and prostitutes ply their trade at all hours of the day.

Additional link: Exotic Escort on Craigslist

By Samson Reiny/Oakland North

Many of Oakland’s community health problems can be traced to a history of bad city planning and land use, an expert from the Alameda County Public Health Department (ACPHD) said last Wednesday during a panel discussion at the American Institute of Architects East Bay offices in downtown Oakland. 

Sandra Witt, the County’s deputy director of planning policy and health equity, referred often to a report published last year called “Life and Death from Unnatural Causes: Health and Social Inequity in Alameda County,” as she argued that historical segregation, racial steering and block-busting practices by real estate agents, as well as business disinvestment and concentrated poverty in urban centers, have created poor living conditions in largely non-white communities.   

Witt said that this has resulted today in the proliferation of liquor stores, a lack of safe community spaces, and forced close proximity to hazardous industrial zones, just a few of the many direct causes of health inequity for these depressed communities.  People in these areas suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes, asthma, and early death.

The report found that both ethnicity and geography play a role in one’s health. Compared to a white child in the Oakland Hills, a black child in West Oakland is seven times more likely to be born into poverty, five times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes, and two times more likely to die of heart disease.  A black child in West Oakland, on average, has a life expectancy that is fifteen years shorter than that of a white child in the hills. “Looking at social inequities, it’s indicative of who makes decisions, and how we value certain populations over others,” Witt said.

Alameda County will try several strategies to overcome these challenges.  The “Place Matters Team,” formed in 2007 as an initiative of the Health Policy Institute, conducts research that focuses on the influence of social conditions on health.  The findings are designed to influence policy on issues including affordable housing, economic development, education, and land use.

The county’s public health department has also advocated on behalf of communities confronted with potentially health-averse developments.  Last year, county health officials were one of several agencies that testified before the California Energy Commission (CEC), lobbying against the construction of a power plant in a low-income area in Hayward.  The CEC ultimately denied the permit requested by the East Shore Energy Center to build.  Officials also recently testified at a San Leandro City Council Meeting, urging members to support an affordable housing complex as part of a new development project near the downtown BART.  A decision is expected by the end of the month.

The health department is also involved in the City-County Neighbor Initiative (CCNI), a partnership between the county, the city of Oakland, the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), and various community groups aimed to help neighborhood residents tackle health inequities.  The CCNI worked with Sobrante Park area residents as they petitioned the Oakland City Council to fund improvements and safety measures at Tyrone Carney park, which was closed in 2002 due to violence and drug dealing in the area.  In 2007, the city allotted $30,000 for the redesign of the park, and public works installed new traffic safety improvements. 

“Creating healthy communities is in the original DNA of the planning profession,” said Albert Lopez, director of planning for the County. “But good advice has been ignored for several decades.” He notes that urban sprawl in the last several years has been about “dumb growth,” about reckless planning in certain counties and communities.  “There’s a lack of pedestrian amenities and there’s a real sense of isolation in the hinterlands like Antioch and Pittsburgh, where they have less access to transportation and resources,” Lopez said.

But Lopez said he believes that change is coming.  Planning is moving toward regionalism and mandates from a higher level of government, a change from what had been largely a city and county’s prerogative. Lopez said he believes it’s probably better this way, because the greater oversight of planning for land usage, “will create better connectors between housing, jobs, and transit … it will reinforce sustainability and resiliency.” 

As an example of this trend toward a more integrated and thoughtful planning system, the state is putting an emphasis on “going green.” In 2008, the California Legislature passed bill, SB375, which provides priority federal and state funding for communities whose plans include ample walking alternatives and public transportation. The goal of the legislation was not only community sustainability but decreased automobile usage, which would help to offset carbon emission levels.

But Lopez said planning does not hold all the answers to better health equity.

“The solution is not just a land use issue alone,” he said.  “It requires a conversation with various professions, and it needs political will.” 

Witt agreed. “There are historical forces at play in shaping our communities,” she said. “It’s not just a public health issue. It’s how we can better collaborate with transportation, educational sectors … it’s a collective effort.”   

A peaceful demonstration over the recent fatal shooting by a BART police officer escalated into violence last night in downtown Oakland

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Fruitvale BART station at 3 p.m .Wednesday to protest the death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, a Hayward resident shot by the BART officer, 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle, in the early morning hours of January 1 on the Fruitvale BART station platform in front of dozens of witnesses.  Since the incident occurred, cell phone footage of the shooting, available on the Internet and other media outlets, has sparked public outrage.

Hundreds of Oakland police were called in, and in full riot gear-helmets, batons, and shields-tried to disperse the crowd and contain the escalating violence.

At around 9:15 p.m., Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums emerged from City Hall, met protesters on 14th street, and led a group of roughly 100 to the City Hall steps.  Speaking through a bullhorn over the sound of overhead police and news helicopters, he urged protesters to respect one another.  “I sense your pain and your frustration,” Dellums said.  Protesters responded angrily, booing and shouting that the Oakland police need to show more respect.  “We need the real Black Panthers out here!” one protester shouted.

When the Mayor went back into city hall, the crowd started to chant: “No Justice, No Peace!”

The protesters demanded answers as to why BART, the Oakland police, and the city had not responded to the shooting in a more urgent manner by insisting that Mehserle provide a statement about the incident. Mehserle, who had been with the BART police for two years, abruptly resigned on Wednesday, just before he was supposed to be interviewed by BART investigators.

John Burris, an Oakland-based civil rights lawyer representing Grant’s family, says he believes Mehserle quit in order to avoid being interviewed by investigators in his department.  He added that BART legally could have demanded that Mehserle and the other BART police officers at the scene give statements on the night of the incident.  So far, they have not demanded that he give a statement.

Burris also said there had been at least two prior complaints about Mehserle before the shooting.

After Dellums retreated into City Hall, roughly 25 to 30 protesters then began running throughout the blocks around Frank H. Ogawa plaza, smashing in windows of cars and businesses along the way.  They smashed the windshields of four cars belonging to the city of Oakland, and broke a window at the police station.  Some set fires to trashcans and knocked over dumpsters in the middle of the street.  At least three cars were set ablaze, and there were other small fires that police and the Oakland fire department quickly extinguished.

In their riot gear, the police tried to contain the protesters.  Some protesters threw bottles at the police officers, and into the windows and doors of downtown Oakland businesses.

By 9:30pm, three BART stations-Fruitvale, 12th Street and Lake Merritt-were closed.

At around 9:40pm, police released tear gas near City Hall to try and break up the demonstration.  Within an hour, the police had contained most of the mayhem.  More that 100 people were arrested throughout the night.

But business owners in downtown Oakland like Leemu Topka, who has run a hair salon called Creative African Braids on 14th street for the past four years, will have to deal with the aftermath.  Many spent this morning sweeping chards of glass off of their stoops.  Some store owners arrived at work this morning to find that the windows of their stores had been shattered, and others, like Topka, were around to see it happen.

Topka says she was working in the shop around 8pm with her husband and baby when she saw a group of protesters approach her door.

“I was scared for my life,” said Topka.  Although she understands why the protesters were angry, Topka says she doesn’t understand why their anger was aimed at her and at her shop.  “If you’re protesting that a black person was killed, why go to your black sister’s shop and break all the windows?”

Topka said the protesters tried to get into the shop, but that her husband held the door shut.  She called the police, she said, but got no response.  Then one of the protesters threw a bottle through the door, she said,and broke the glass.

In lieu of this morning’s planned protest, Oakland police stationed officers on nearly every block of downtown Oakland to prepare for a repeat of the previous night.

So far, this morning’s protest in front of the building on 20th street in downtown Oakland, where the BART board meeting was held, has been peaceful.  Around 50 people were gathered in front of the building at 9:30 a.m. to protest BART’s response to the shooting incident.  “Coach Joe,” a teacher of science and physical education at the nearby Oasis high school, brought to the protest a large group of his students, ranging from ages 16 to 18–as an educational experience, the teacher said. “We didn’t come to break anything,” he said.  “We came to be seen and heard.” He added that many of his students hadn’t wanted to come to school at all because they were angry and felt that the shooting was unjustified, and BART’s response to the shooting unacceptable.

“Happy New Year’s Eve, I love you, and may God Bless Your Family.”

That was the text that Cephus Johnson said he sent to his nephew, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III, at 12:49 a.m. on Thursday.  But Grant never responded, and a little more than an hour later he was shot in the back and killed on the Fruitvale BART station platform by a BART police officer, according to cell-phone videos and eye-witness accounts of the incident.

Attorney John Burris and witness Mario Pangelina talk with the press about the January 1 shooting at the Fruitvale BART station.

BART officials said there is no video footage of the incident available from BART surveillance cameras.  However, numerous witnesses and at least three video accounts of the incident taken from cell phones reveal that Grant was unarmed and lying face down on the platform at the time he was shot.

“The video tapes speak volumes,” said John Burris, the Oakland-based civil rights lawyer representing Grant’s family, at a recent press conference.  BART officials have declined to comment.

Both the BART Police and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office are in the process of conducting investigations into the shooting.  In addition, Grant’s family announced today that they will file a $25 million dollar lawsuit claim with BART on Monday, and a civil rights lawsuit to follow.

“It is without a doubt the most unconscionable shooting I have seen, ever,” said Burris.  “In that Mr. Grant at the time he was shot and killed was in fact laying on his stomach with his back to two officers, with one officer kneeling down at his neck area and the other officer straddling over him and standing in a bent position with Mr. Grant’s back to him.  He did not have a weapon, he was not kicking, and he had been turned over.”

Burris believes that the facts involved in the shooting warrant consideration of criminal charges for murder against the officer, and plans to make this request of the Alameda County District Attorney this week.

Sidewalk memorial for Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale station.

A statement released Sunday morning from BART Police Chief Gary Gee does not give any further details about the case that weren’t already released, and asks that the public “be patient, refrain from jumping to conclusions, and allow the investigators do their job.”  BART officials said that the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave.

Also according to the press release, five BART police officers pulled Grant and three others onto the platform in response to a report that two groups of riders were involved in a fight on a train coming from San Francisco and bound for Dublin-Pleasanton after leaving the West Oakland station around 2 a.m.  The train stopped for a longer time than usual at the Fruitvale station so that officers could pull offenders off the train and break up the fight.

But witnesses on the train sitting at the Fruitvale station at the time of the shooting said that Grant and others were pulled from the train without reason and treated with unnecessary force.

Sophina Mesa, the mother of Grant’s four-year-old daughter, was with Grant for New Year’s Eve and was present at the shooting, but was not a witness.  Mesa’s brother, 23-year-old Mario Pangelino, also did not witness the shooting but heard the gunshot because he was 15-feet away from Grant when the incident occurred.

At a recent press conference, Pangelino described the events on the platform prior to the incident.  His descriptions are corroborated by multiple videos accounts.

Pangelino was one of hundreds of partygoers who packed into a crowded late-night BART train on New Year’s Eve to return to his Hayward home after celebrating in San Francisco with his family.  He was riding two cars behind Grant when the train stopped at Fruitvale.  When he saw his sister walk by on the Fruitvale platform, Pangelino stepped out of the car to see why she had disembarked.

When he looked to his left, he saw Grant talking to police officers at a nearby wall on the platform.  Pangelino said he saw an officer grab Grant by the neck, and when Grant resisted, another officer approached him with a stun gun or “Taser.”

“I could see the red dots on his face and that’s when he slid down [the wall] and said ‘please please don’t shoot me, don’t tase me.  Please.  I have a daughter,’” said Pangelino, who added that more than one officer had their Tasers out and at-the-ready.

Pangelino said that Grant had his hands in the air when he sat down next to three other young men sitting at the wall, two of whom had been handcuffed by the cops earlier.  “That’s when one of them grabbed his wrists and pulled him off the wall,” said Pangelino.

As Burris recounted in the press conference, a recently released video account shot from a cell phone reveals the following events: an officer moved Grant from the wall to the ground so that he was lying face down, while another officer stood over, straddling him.  The officer straddling him, a two-year veteran of the force whose name has not been released, then reached for his holster and shot Grant once in the back.  So far BART officials have only said that the officer’s gun “discharged” once.

Witnesses say that directly after the shooting, the officer said: “Oh my God.”

“I didn’t even know he was shot,” said Pangelino.

He said that he thought it was a rubber bullet gun at first, and riders in the train-car near him assumed it was the sound of a taser being triggered.  Pangelino said he tried to hold the BART train door open, but a female cop made everyone get back on the train and it left before he could hold the train at the station.

Witnesses said that officers put handcuffs on Grant after the shooting occurred, and then removed them as the ambulance arrived.  He died soon after at Highland hospital.

“The intention of the officer is not significant.  It’s what he did that counts,” said Burris at the press conference.  “And what he did at the time was step back, pull his gun out of his holster, point it at the back, and fired it.”

BART police have the same training as city police officers, and have the same authority for arrest.   In 2001, 42-year-old Edward Seward was shot in the chest and killed by a BART police officer at the Hayward station, and roughly ten years prior to that in 1992, an unarmed 19-year old named Jerrold Hall was shot in the back and killed by BART police at the same station.  In both cases, the BART police involved in the shootings were eventually cleared of wrongdoing.

Over thirty of Grant’s friends and family members attended the press conference, and many have said that they will spend the next week holding vigil that the memorial that the BART officials have allowed them to erect outside of the Fruitvale station.

Grant was raised with his sister in Hayward by his mother, Wanda Johnson, who had just celebrated her birthday on December 31 when she received the news that her son had been shot.  He worked as a butcher at Hayward’s Farmer Joe’s store.  Family members say that Grant was a big sports fan, and Cephus Johnson, Grant’s uncle, said that they had plans to attend all of the Raiders games together before the shooting occurred.

Hollywood often stereotypes librarians as mousy women in horn-rimmed glasses who hide behind books. But the work of a librarian is not limited to searching databases and silencing noisy patrons. As mandated by the Young Adult Services Association (part of the American Library Association), an element of advocacy underlies the work that librarians do. For one Alameda County Librarian, she took the mandate of advocacy to heart to ensure that her patrons, the inmates of the Alameda Juvenile Detention Hall, were not disenfranchised during the 2008 Presidential Election.

As the Write-to-Read coordinator for the Alameda County juvenile justice program, Amy Cheney spends most of her days at the juvenile detention hall in San Leandro. Write-to-Read brings library services, programs and literacy to incarcerated youth. Because they are minors, these offenders were unable to comment for this report.

As the election approached, Cheney said that her job as a librarian was to provide these incarcerated youth with the voter registration forms and election information that would have been available to them at any public library in the free world.

“It wasn’t enough to just give them the registration forms,” she said, “I had to make sure their votes counted because if the registration process isn’t done correctly, they can’t vote.”

Cheney was targeting youth who would turn 18 by Election Day as well as those who were 18 and serving sentences for crimes they committed as a minor.

Cheney said she attended a voter registration program and began volunteering some of her personal time to ensure these youth were able to complete the often confusing registration and ballot-casting process.

Over a period of one month, Cheney said she managed to register every individual in the juvenile justice system who would be eligible to vote on Election Day — roughly 30 people. Of those 30, Cheney said all but ten were released before Election Day, and, she hopes, they received their ballots at home.

For those ten other inmates behind bars, Cheney said, the ballots were supposed to be mailed to them at the detention hall. With the election only two days away, the ballots had still not arrived.

“We had to find out where the ballots went. I asked the kids to call their parents to see if they had them. Then I took all the names and called the registrar of voters,” said Cheney.

Cheney said that the registrar’s office was unable to locate the registration forms without the registration numbers. As it happened, Cheney said she had made copies and given them to the local Wellstone Democratic Club for their records.

Larry Steinhart, who managed the voter registration efforts at the club, said that all registration information was entered into a database. Due to a glitch in the system, Steinhart had to manually search through thousands of entries, but was able to retrieve all but two of the form numbers.

Steinhart said he was happy to help but felt that Cheney was taking on a “Herculean” task. “I thought there was next to no chance that these kids would ever be able to vote from inside the institution. I thought she was out of her mind in a kind of Don Quixote manner, tilting at all the institutional windmills,” he said.

With registration numbers in hand, Cheney said she returned to the registrar’s office and was finally able to ensure that the names were in the system. She also made sure that official ballots were hand-delivered to the juvenile detention hall. Rather than risk the mail, she said that she physically delivered the ballots to the polling place on Election Day.

Cheney said the experience was frustrating. “What if you don’t have an advocate? It really irritates me. This might be human error, but could we not have a better system?” she said.

But Cheney said her effort was worth it. She said there was an overwhelming response to her educational efforts throughout the detention hall and the youth developed an interest in social and political issues that she had never witnessed before.

“Kids were wanting to register [to vote] who weren’t 18 and readership increased throughout the detention hall. I’ve never gotten anyone to read any book about a president. But everyone wanted to read [Barack] Obama’s book. People wanted to read Michael Moore’s ‘Election Guide.’ I even handed out a Nation magazine to a kid,” said Cheney.

Cheney was quick to assert that her efforts were bi-partisan and that she tried to fully explain the positions of the different political parties and both sides of each item on the ballots. She even provided the youth with contact information so they could do their own research in the detention hall’s library and when they were able to make phone calls.

That being said, Cheney said that many of the young offenders were immediately drawn to Barack Obama because they felt they were able to relate to him.

“I feel like they saw themselves [in him] and wanted to vote. It was great,” she said, adding,

“Obama is speaking in a way that youth can understand.  There’s an absolute connection to him, not just because he’s black but because of his circumstances. The fact that he didn’t know his father and was raised by a single mother; the kids in here can relate to that,” she said.

While Steinhart was never able to meet any of the youth, he said that Cheney’s work taught these juvenile offenders that they had an advocate who was willing to work on their behalf and that their voices matter.

“The voting opportunity which Amy provided was a teaching moment in individual exercise of choice and participation in the civic life of their country. Their voices in this election were equally as powerful as yours and mine, which is as it should be in a democracy,” said Steinhart.

Now that the election is over, Cheney said she is trying to make sure the youth understand that they need to re-register whenever they move, and they do so frequently.

Cheney said she continues to find ways to improve the Write-to-Read program, but hopes that with Obama as president, the youths will maintain an interest in current events and learning that many of them did not have before.

“I think his election is going to have a big impact on them and future generations,” she said.

April 1st, 2008. The 911 call came at 2:30am from a woman reporting that she had been raped and robbed inside her apartment. Fremont patrol officers quickly located the suspect in an adjacent apartment where he had barricaded himself inside. It was time to call in the SWAT team. The team quickly surrounded and locked down the building. But after nine hours of failed negotiations, SWAT officers fired tear gas into the apartment. The suspect immediately surrendered was taken into custody without injury.

The effectiveness of any SWAT team in a situation such as this, requires high quality training in weapons use and tactical operations. But a team does not operate alone. A recent joint training operation by the Fremont police department showed that an intricate relationship between the SWAT team, hostage negotiator team (HNT) and tactical dispatchers is vital in any “call out.”

Fremont SWAT officers take down a suspect during a training operation

For this recent joint training operation, organizers transformed an abandoned daycare center into the scene of an incident. Role players were brought in to serve as suspects, victims and hostages. The nature of the scenario was known only by a handful of organizers, or proctors.

While SWAT team members donned their protective gear and loaded up their weapons with dummy rounds, the tactical dispatch team got set up in the RV-sized mobile command center. Not far away, the HNT organized their smaller van, filled with equipment used to communicate with suspects and gather intelligence.

Also inside the mobile command center was the command team. The command team is comprised of the SWAT tactical commander, Sgt. Patrick Epps and the HNT team commander, Sgt. Curt Codey. The final decision maker is team commander Lt. Johnny Liu. “We’re like the intelligence center, we make sense of all the information coming in from the tactical team and HNT,” said Epps.

The event kicked off with a “call” to dispatchers, reporting that a suspect who had escaped from jail was barricaded in his house with two hostages. According to Epps, a 22-year veteran of the force who has been on the SWAT team for 14 years, the SWAT team was dispatched in a “surround and call out” operation.

“The days of a SWAT team kicking in the front door and running through the house and tackling everybody are over. Our job is to protect lives. Which includes our own. The priority of life now is citizens and hostages, officers and suspects,” he said.

According to Epps, the majority of SWAT calls today result in the “surround and call out scenario.” This is when a SWAT team surrounds the building and provides the suspect with someone to talk to, a hostage negotiator. The SWAT team is then on standby for a worst-case scenario or to accept a surrender.

The responsibility of making contact with a suspect falls to the HNT. Codey has been on the HNT team for 22 years and in charge of it for nine. According to him, 90 to 95-percent of the time, incidents are resolved through negotiations.

“We want it that way,” said Codey, “Our job on the HNT is to keep those guys [SWAT] from having to go in. They’re our friends and we don’t want them to go into harms way.”

Fremont SWAT officers approach a house where hostages are being held during a training exercise

Sometimes this negotiation process is quick said Codey. Other times it can take hours. He said that this is why communication and cooperation is pertinent in call outs. It is important for HNT to know what the SWAT team’s needs are so that HNT can gather appropriate information, such as the number of individuals inside or the layout of the room.

But HNT also relies heavily on SWAT tactical operations. “We can’t do anything without containment. It’s very difficult to negotiate without containment. So the SWAT team provides that element,” said Codey.

Containment refers to surrounding suspect and cutting off any possible escape routes, thus making that suspect dependent upon the negotiator for a safe exit.

In Fremont, the 20-member SWAT team and 16-member HNT is considered a collateral assignment, meaning the job is in addition to each officer’s traditional police assignment, such as patrol, traffic or detective.

Outside of joint exercises, the SWAT team and HNT train 22 hours a month in order to maintain the high standards set by the Commission of Peace Officer Standards and training. There are also opportunities for more advanced state and federal training.

For those involved in SWAT and HNT, the additional training and work hours are worth the price and are often the reason they became involved with the team in the first place.

“It takes a lot of dedication. A lot of training,” said SWAT officer Jeremy Miskella, “I always like to be very tactical in my job and obviously your job as a SWAT officer is very tactical, so I kind of fell into it.

Above all else, these officers said that camaraderie is the driving factor behind their involvement and dedication in SWAT and HNT. “It’s the people. It’s like being on the football team in high school. You’re surrounded by 20 of your best buddies,” said former SWAT officer Steve Pace, now a technical advisor for the team.

Along with this advanced training comes additional responsibilities. “It’s a special call of duty. You can’t make any mistakes in this business, it’s not accepted. It’s not allowed,” said Epps.

These responsibilities can take their toll on officers, especially those on the HNT who are attempting to communicate with a suspect or victim.

Fremont SWAT officer Ramin Mahboobi pulls security as a suspect prepares to surrender

Codey said that the job of a negotiator is a double-edge sword. On the one hand they must develop a report with a person in order to gain their confidence, but if a situation turns negative, he said it is emotionally damaging to the negotiator.

“We’ve had people kill themselves while negotiators are talking to them and that’s extremely taxing on the negotiators. But that attachment is also what makes you effective,” said Codey.

It is the pressure to achieve success that officers said drives them rather than hinders them. Former SWAT officer and now technical advisor for the team, Tony Tassano, said, “Sometimes things go to crap and we are the guys they call out to fix it.”

Codey said that the challenge of resolving a difficult situation is what he enjoys the most. “You’ve got an incident that might be life or death. You might have 40 or 50 cops out here. Everything is hanging on your word. On what you hear and your communication skills,” he said.

While the Fremont SWAT team may not respond to as many calls as cities such as Oakland, Epps said that the police department and city of Fremont are dedicated to fully funding the team. The team also provides personnel and equipment to assist other cities when requested.

This support from the police department and city ensures that the team has sufficient resources needed to stay abreast of improved tactics and field new equipment. The joint training scenarios then provide an opportunity to test out these skills and technology and discern what works and what needs improvement.

No matter how proficient the SWAT team, HNT or tactical dispatch team is by itself, the joint training showed that it is the interaction between the three that determines the success or failure of a mission. As Epps said, “Communication is the key to the successful outcome of these things. The perfect SWAT call out is when we roll in and we roll out and it’s not in the news because nobody got hurt.”

When University of California, Berkeley junior Mariana Kayichian looked for new housing this summer, it was with safety in mind that she chose a house on Piedmont Avenue.

Mariana Kayichian stands on her Piedmont Ave. balcony, where, on Oct 4 she said she was shot in the forehead with a BB gun

Since most of her friends live just a few blocks away, Kayichian knew she wouldn’t need to risk long walks home from parties at night. Other students also advised her that Piedmont, Berkeley’s unofficial fraternity row and an undergraduate nightlife hub had a lower risk of crime than other neighborhoods near campus.

So it was especially shocking when, as Kayichian, 19, stood chatting with friends on her balcony on a Saturday night, she was shot in the head with a BB gun and knocked to the floor.

No arrests have been made, and no one saw the shooter, according to Kayichian, witnesses and a police report. There are no buildings across the street close enough for a shot onto Kayichian’s balcony, and no pedestrians were seen nearby, witnesses said. Those present say they think the BB must have been randomly fired from a moving car.

“It was the weirdest, most hilarious situation in the world,” Kayichian said in an interview a week after the incident. “It wasn’t hilarious at the time because I was kind of in a lot of pain, but looking back the next morning it was just the most random thing.”

Kayichian’s friends who witnessed the incident spoke a little more gravely in their accounts of what happened. A little before 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 4, they heard a loud noise, said junior Ani Mazmanyan, 20, who was a few feet from Kayichian when she was shot. It wasn’t until Mazmanyan saw the stream of blood pouring from her friend’s forehead slowed that she realized what had happened.

“When the blood stopped gushing, we saw how deep the wound was,” Mazmanyan said. “The scariest part is it could have hit her eye and it could have blinded her.”

Kayichian declined medical treatment and stayed at home following the incident, where it took several hours for the wound to stop bleeding and her ears to stop ringing. Only a small scar remains on her forehead, and she said she is not concerned for her safety because she believes the BB was randomly fired.

“I figured it was just an accident,” she said.

But Mazmanyan said the incident changed her thinking about safety in the neighborhood.

“I don’t go on the balcony anymore,” she said.

Berkeley Police Department spokesman Andrew Frankel said that while BB gun shootings are rare near the campus, he was not surprised the incident happened, especially near fraternity houses. Frankel said he was shot more than 10 years ago while walking home from class at the University of Maryland.

“I think it was somebody with a BB gun from a nearby fraternity,” Frankel said.

BB guns are low-grade guns powered by air rather than gunpowder. They are often sold as toys.

The weapons and fraternities have a history of mixing at Berkeley and other campuses around the country, according to news reports. In 2005, Berkeley’s Pi Kappa Phi chapter was closed for a year after a prospective member was shot at least 30 times during hazing activities. The victim was treated at a hospital for welts and bruises and then released, according to a university statement.

That same year, a fraternity member at Dartmouth College in Vermont was charged with randomly firing a BB gun, injuring a fellow student. And in 1999, a University of Michigan student underwent surgery after he was shot in the groin with a BB gun by a member of the fraternity he was trying to join.

Frankel said some students view BB guns as toys, and do not realize they can cause serious injuries.

“You need to treat all firearms, including BB guns with the respect that they deserve,” he said.

Copper metal has become the new gold standard in the underground economy.

Fremont and other East Bay cities have seen a dramatic increase in copper theft, especially since the commodity has risen above $3 a pound.

Fremont Police Detective Bill Veteran said the theft of copper and other metals has reached epidemic proportions, and said he believes most of the offenders in the Tri-City area are drug addicts.

“With any dope abuser, they need money and they need it quick,” said Veteran, who’s been an officer for 23 years. “It’s really a crime of opportunity and the reason I think they’re stealing is because the chance of confrontation with somebody is pretty remote.”

The Fremont Police Department does not keep official records documenting the number of thefts involving stolen metals, or the number of arrests made in association with stolen metals. But Veteran said the department gets several calls a week from people reporting stolen copper, aluminum and brass objects.

Miguel Belasquez, a foreman with MCON Construction, removes partially destroyed copper wires from the Niles Square housing development. Belasquez said thieves have targeted the site on numerous occasions, targeting higher priced metals like copper.

“(They) can steal 20-pound brass fittings and it’s a lot more profitable than picking up aluminum cans and recycling them,” Veteran said. “So (copper and brass) is unfortunately becoming a commodity of choice.”

Veteran said locals have reported sewer covers, metal plaques, sculptures and even a copper urn stolen from area properties.

According to Veteran, the most popular target for metal thieves are construction sites.

Todd Jegglie, a superintendent with Standard Pacific Homes, has been laboring on the 40-unit Niles Square housing development in Fremont for more than two years.

In that time, Jegglie said Niles Square, featuring $500,000 three-bedroom homes, has been hit by thieves on six different occasions, the last theft occurring two weeks ago.

Thieves are attracted to Niles Square because each residential unit contains about $4,000 in copper wire and plumbing.

“It’s incredibly frustrating for us,” Jegglie said. “(Thieves) will rip the whole house apart, even when families (are) ready to close in on a housing deal in two weeks.”

Jegglie said the problem of metal theft has forced construction workers and developers to think creatively in hiding expensive construction material, including burying metal products a foot underground. Some developers have also installed cameras on site or hired security guards.

However, Jegglie said security officers cost more than $8,000 a month and would not be economical for smaller developments like Niles Square.

“It’s going to continue regardless,” Jegglie said. “(Thieves) know there’s money (in stealing metal) and there’s no way of stopping them.”

Nationwide, theft of copper and other metals is estimated to cost $1 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Despite the growing problem, few have solutions in curtailing metal theft.

Officer Veteran said despite the epidemic, police departments can’t devote time and resources to a crime that is hard to solve since material often doesn’t have tracking numbers.

“It’s not an extremely high priority for us,” Veteran said. “We don’t have five or 6 detectives chasing down copper wire.

“If something is unique enough, we’ll go investigate it. But it’s tough, because you can’t tell what’s stolen.”

It costs approximately $300 for 100-feet of copper wire. The Niles Square development has about $4,000 of copper in each residential unit, making it and similar sites, popular for metal bandits.

Veteran and Jegglie agree recycling facilities need to be more cautious in purchasing stolen metals from thieves.

Richard Valle, president of Tri-CED community recycling in Union City, decided the only way to avoid purchasing metal which may have been stolen.

“In previous years, we got material from homeowners or contractors in small quantities,” said Valle, who has owned Tri-CED since 1980. “Then about five years ago, people began bringing in huge quantities and their stories didn’t make sense.

Valle said people often turned in spools of unused copper, and to him, it was a sign that the metal was stolen.

“We got out (of buying metals) because we didn’t want to be in the business of buying stolen goods.”

But, for some East Bay residents, selling metals legally is how they put food on the table or fill their gas tanks.

Fremont resident Charlie Miller, 60, scavenges the city for aluminum products, looking for cans, chairs, hub caps and other material.

Miller, who is disabled, said he uses the money to fill up his gas tank, which costs about $30.

“I don’t make nothing,” said Miller, of recycling aluminum. “Just enough to pay for my gas.”

But even in the underground world of metal scavenging, Miller knows the value of copper.

“Copper is like gold.”

By Adelaide Chen

The nightlife in Oakland’s Eastlake area has never thrived, but it existed quietly. Among the local businesses today, many of the Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants close early, before 8pm.

If it wasn’t enough that the a string of robberies scared away customers in the evenings a few months back, business for the 20 or so restaurant owners have been hit by another factor–the downturn in the economy.

“We lose customers during dinnertime,” said Dien Dam, owner of Pho King Noodle House, which specializes in Vietnamese beef noodle soup.

“This time the economy has gone down and food prices gone up.”

Dam’s restaurant has never been robbed in its 14 year existence. But when four restaurants in the neighborhood last summer, no customers patroned her place after 4 or 5 o’clock.

These days she closes the restaurant at 6:30pm.

“There’s not enough (night)life,” she said. “Nobody walks outside.”

In Eastlake, over 150 small, immigrant-owned businesses line two parallel streets, International Blvd and East 12th. Storefronts often have signs in two or three languages. There are auto repair shops and beauty salons, realty and mortgage brokers, lawyers and doctors that cater to the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Latino residents in the area.

Kimberly To’s family owns New Saigon Supermarket and she has gotten to know how their business is affected directly by the financial situation of her clients.

The store’s highest sales fall on the first of each month when paychecks and food stamps are issued. During property tax season her sales are lower because her clients are saving up.

“They tend to cook at home more than eat out now,” she said. But it hasn’t affected the supermarket’s bottom line “because (the customers) still have to eat.”

Jackie Xian, 36, hasn’t fallen on hard times. But when he eats out with friends, he prefers to drive outside of the neighborhood, he said, to places where there are more businesses open and more people around.

“To have a good time, you need to feel safe,” he said. At 6 o’clock on a recent night, Xian, among others, was picking up takeout items for dinner, and not sticking around.

He said he chooses to meet his friends in other hotspots for Chinese restaurants. He preferred strip malls in Richmond off the 80 interstate, or south down the 880 freeway to the suburbs in Fremont and Milpitas.

Jose Macias said his family-owned restaurant and bar, La Estrellita, has been in business for four decades, and it has never been robbed. But the family takes precautions. The doors lock after dark, and the staff lets
customers in and out.

“I think everyone felt it,” he says of the robberies in Eastlake, that struck four restaurants serving Asian cuisine.

Macias said he noticed a ten percent drop in his sales this year, but his situation might be different compared to the Asian restaurants. His customers come from a wider range of ethnic backgrounds, he said.

“They’re diverse, like Oakland,” he said.

Victor’s, a bar down the street who serves a primarily Latino clientele, hasn’t had much of a drop off in sales either, according to the owner. On a early Sunday evening, a handful of bartenders and servers entertained over 20 customers. Ranchero music blared from the speakers.

Candelario Cuevas, who has owned Victor’s for more than 30 years, said he isn’t too worried about safety.

“The police patrol a lot,” he said. “They come around. You see them almost all night.”

Across from Clinton Park at Cafe DaHuong, Thanh Pham, 33, said more activities and festivals used to be held at the park that drew crowds.

Pham has lived in the neighborhood for over ten years. As far as the nightlife, young people would come to Eastlake, cruising Lake Merritt after hip-hop shows, he said. But the city began enforcing the ban on cruising, he said.

“Because hip-hop is supposed to be violent, the police say,” he said.

The Rainbow Cafe, which serves Hong Kong cuisine, used to be a popular late-night hang out place. It stays open until around midnight.

The manager, Alice Huang, remembers having more customers in their twenties come in.

But this year alone, the cafe has been robbed three times. The owner is thinking about closing the restaurant she said, partly because of the economy, partly because of the robberies.

On an early Sunday evening, there were a few occupied tables. Some of the customers had their eyes glued to the T.V. screen watching a football game.

“In a little while no one will come, once it gets dark,” Huang said, as she prepared for a late night at work.