Posted on 01/15/2013 1:29:53 PM PST by ScottinVA
Just before Oakland city officials held a news conference Monday in East Oakland to assure everyone that they've got a handle on crime, I took a little walk around the neighborhood to ask local residents if they felt safe.
Vincent Peters, 32, who was waiting for a bus with his wife and their 2-month old daughter, definitely does not. He said he's preparing to move his family from the area because he values their safety.
"You can hardly walk down the street without someone pushing a gun at you," Peters said. "These kids are scared, and that's why they're carrying guns and knives too.
"I'm not fixing to raise my daughter here," he said. "I guess I'm moving to the suburbs. Good schools, less crime."
As I walked, I found it next to impossible not to run into a local resident who hadn't been touched directly or indirectly by gun violence in this part of the city.
Across the street from the spot where the news conference was to take place on the windswept 6400 block of International Boulevard, Alexander Brown, a 22-year-old student, talked about his run-ins with violence. He has been robbed and beaten, and had a gun stuck in his face two years ago.
He relies on his deep religious faith to see him through. "I put my faith in my creator," said the young man.
Literally 5 feet down the block, brothers Boogie and Antwan Johnson, who were walking home, also had a story of violence to tell.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Not from Oakland if he says "fixin to"
Oh, I think there is a truth far less varnished than that. No SFGate reporter would ever be allowed to run it in print, however.
We still don’t know if it’s lead or steel, but I can’t ever have an MRI, as it would either super-heat or be ripped right out of me. Looks a little ‘bent’, so I’m thinking it’s lead.
Docs didn’t want to operate back in ‘74, since they didn’t have arthroscopic surgery back then, and it would have been a 5-6” incision. More invasive than the actual bullet itself.
It did miss ‘everything’, and didn’t even bleed; just a huge red grapefruit-sized lump w/ black dot in the center. Didn’t even hurt until about 30-40mins later. Trauma Ctr doc said, “God was truly sitting on your shoulder, tonite”. I was VERY lucky. Once.
Have you ever asked "Why doesn't Oakland track down where these guns came from?" Well the answer may surprise you; they have. It takes about an hour through the California Department of Justice. Yes it's that easy. You see most of the handguns used in Oakland were purchased legally. This was brought to their attention a year or two ago and they decided to do nothing about it. They are straw purchases made by girlfriends. The Oakland official who was informed of this declared that they will ignore it because they do not want any "baby momma drama." So they know that no action will be taken and more and more baby mommas buy guns for the baby daddy. The Federal prosecutor and BATFE are cooperating with Oakland on not cracking down on it.
The ‘leaders” are just busy stickin’ it to The Man.
we have to get all the guns off the streets. our children are dying
There are three gun zones: the urban zones, the suburbs and the vast rural expanse.
Gun laws only reduce the number of guns in the suburbs. Everywhere else will be business as usual.
Lucky indeed. You body has walled it off, and I guess has just rerouted everything.
How? We have a large criminal class, which is to say millions of men who lives outside of the law. We have millions more who have no respect for the law, thinking of it much as a bad kid in a classroom might, as rules to be avoided or changed to fit their desires, which are themselves always changing.
Like the small town where live. Folks here are armed to the teeth, hunt and fish. But crime is very low here.
Oh there are enough cops there for East Oakland, but they are are running around in their patrol cars all day- not one single foot patrol there - they are chicken cops- The only place they have foot patrols is in Oakland Chinatown to protect tourists there- but the locals in Chinatown Oakland have had their own security forces there since 1960s`— they go in groups at night when the cops leave and patrol all of Chinatown with clubs and bats.- You could walk pretty safely there then with those citizen patrols. I lived there for 3 years.
Third World dominance(governance) brings Third World living.
That graphic makes my neck hair stand-up! And we’re legally only a couple of flute notes away from it happening, right here. FMCDH.
There’s a large (benign) mass surrounding it, now. I told the docs that if you’re planning to take it out, I want it to wear on a chain around my neck. Legally, all bullet wounds require LE notification, but since that was 39yrs ago, it doesn’t apply anymore. SOL has expired.
Y'know. As a young boy, I hated my name. I wondered what had possessed my mother to name me "Antwan." I mean, it's spelled "Antoine", for Pete's sake.
But then, my baby brother came along and she named him "Boogie". I came to love my name.
That's a great name. Of course he was destined to become a bluesman.
Oakland and it’s sisters:
Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Clevland, Pittsburg, and etc.
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