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OAKLAND — Skeletal remains found Nov. 7 behind Skyline High School have been identified as an 18-year-old woman who was a former student at the school, authorities and relatives said Friday. But how Johnikka Jackson died has not yet been determined and homicide Sgt. Lou Cruz said police are still "trying to determine if foul play was an element of her death." Her remains were found in a canyon behind the school by some students who took some of the bones to the principal's office before police were called. The bones were found near a crude shelter made of wood...

OAKLAND -- Bay area longshoremen were up in arms Friday night when they were denied work at one of Oakland's cargo terminals. The cargo ship, the Zhen Hua 19, pulled into Oakland's Pier Seven and on board was tons of steel slated to be used for the new Bay Bridge. Caltrans decided not to hire the ILWU Local 10 longshoremen to unload the vessel, a decision that angered some local union members.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums says a proposed HBO television series that would examine the world of prostitution in Oakland "goes against our vision of Oakland as the Model City and does a disservice to our residents and visitors alike." In a statement released by his office, Dellums said, "While I understand that there are certain benefits to having a major film done in our city, I am not willing to support this project at this time." Dellums said, "The people of Oakland have come too far to have our city's name trampled upon in the name of entertainment. I am...

An Oakland woman who reluctantly lured her illicit lover to his execution-style shooting death at the request of her jealous gang-leader husband was sentenced today to 15 years to life in state prison for her second-degree murder conviction.

When I tell people who don't live in Oakland that I live here, they often ask me, "Is it safe there?" When I talk to people who do live in Oakland, I often hear, "I don't feel very safe these days." A quick conversation and I discover the root of that fear: the daily headlines screaming homicide and crime. It doesn't help that newspaper columns, neighborhood forums, cocktail party chatter and mothers' groups spend a fair amount of their time figuring out who's to blame for all this. And in the midst of all this, there's a group of people...

OAKLAND — Police internal affairs detectives investigating the handling of journalist Chauncey Bailey's slaying will have state investigators present when they interview members of their department's command staff. Investigators from the attorney general's office will be there to monitor the interviews, according to a letter the Department of Justice sent to Mayor Ron Dellums in November. But the Justice Department won't take over the whole investigation — which is apparently what Oakland internal affairs investigators wanted, the letter stated. "We do not believe, as has been suggested by the Police Department's Internal Affairs investigator, that the Police Department investigation be...

Shhhh. What's the big secret? When it comes to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' deliberations on matters of grave importance - they are cloaked in more secrecy than an illegal CIA counterterrorist operation. When Dellums ran for mayor in 2006, he pledged to run a transparent government. Yet at a time when Oakland needs a strong leader to deal with budget cuts and lack of leadership in several key departments, Dellums is missing in action and his decision- making process is one of the best kept secrets in Oakland City Hall. I don't think even the mayor knows what's going on...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A judge ruled Monday that there's sufficient evidence for the reputed leader of Oakland's worst drug gang to stand trial on attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting a member of a rival gang at 31st Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way on June 30, 2006. At the end of a preliminary hearing that stretched over three weeks, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Vernon Nakahara also ordered 34-year-old Marc Anthony Candler of Castro Valley, the reputed leader of the Acorn gang, to stand trial on a street terrorism clause, possession of assault weapons and being an ex-felon...

The leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery expressed satisfaction on the morning Chauncey Bailey was killed, saying the journalist got what he deserved for taking on the troubled organization in his reporting, a bakery member told Oakland police in a recently discovered account given the day after the slaying. Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV summoned the woman to watch a TV news story about three hours after Bailey, 57, was gunned down on his way to work on Aug. 2, 2007, she told homicide investigators. As they watched the report on the Oakland Post editor's slaying, Bey told her, "That...

I'm lost amid boxes strewn about my apartment in Oakland, packing. This wasn't my intent when I moved here three years ago. Far from it. I moved West to live near family after 20 years of cold Cambridge winters. First stop: San Francisco. I found an apartment just blocks from the bay. Sailboats raced by with spinnakers flying; foghorns lulled me to sleep. But a new job in the East Bay beckoned. Tired of bridge traffic and high pump prices, I moved east again, only this was a shorter hop. I scouted neighborhoods for months. At the time, burglars were...

Susan Gluss may be one of the most recent Oakland residents to move on to safer, saner confines in the Bay Area, but she is by no means alone in her decision to call it quits. Gluss, and countless others like her, are the collateral damage - the civilian fallout - from the city's timid efforts to stem a series of crimes that have terrorized residents much of this year. The steady increase in crime since 2006 has raised residents' concern about personal safety and security to the level where that now vies with the city's underperforming school system as...

OAKLAND — Mayor Ron Dellums told hundreds of business leaders at the Oakland Marriott on Friday that city and state officials are on the verge of an "unprecedented" effort to work together to revitalize 470 city blocks across Oakland.His remarks were offered at the San Francisco Business Times' "Building Oakland" breakfast, and came one day after high-ranking city and state officials met in Oakland to discuss the project, called the California Urban Communities Collaborative.The effort will focus on four separate areas of Oakland, but Dellums offered little information on how it will work. He said more details will be available...

OAKLAND — After a 13-year-old boy threatened the lives of school staff members Thursday morning, police searched the boy's home and found seven loaded guns near his bedroom, school officials and police said today. Police confiscated the weapons, which included two rifles and a shotgun, and took the boy into custody on suspicion of making terrorist threats and threats to a public employee with intent to cause deadly or bodily harm. The boy attended Oakland Community Day School, an alternative school in the hills for middle and high school children who have been expelled. On Thursday morning, he appeared distraught,...

Oakland, in the Jerry Brown years, practiced an unofficial policy of what might be called “community cleansing.” This is not to be confused with “ethnic cleansing,” the horrific activity in parts of, say, Eastern Europe or Central Africa where whole ethnic populations are violently and bloodily removed, either through exile or actual genocide. No, Mr. Brown’s “community cleansing” policies were far more genteel, involving little violence (though some—that’s what the whole Oakland Riders police scandal was about) and targeting not whole ethnic groups, but rather portions of the population that were considered as being “undesirables.” Part of this involved harassment,...

Armed robbers terrorized Oakland restaurants and small businesses in three separate crime sprees over the past year. The first wave targeted Asian eateries and struck during the 2007 holiday season. The second arrived last spring and was more indiscriminate. The third struck in July and August. All three made newspaper headlines and led television newscasts, shining a spotlight on the city's out-of-control crime problem and the Oakland Police Department's apparent inability to cope with it. In fact, the department's public response to the takeover robberies was both odd and illuminating. The department's mantra for dealing with the city's crime spike...

OAKLAND — Leon Wiley laughed as an Alameda County Superior Court Judge today ordered the 30-year old to spend the rest of his life in prison. The former member of the notorious "Nut Case Gang" chuckled some more when family members of one of the three people he either killed or ordered to be killed talked about their loved ones. And, as Wiley was led out of the courtroom after a stern talking-to by Judge Joseph Hurley, he made sure to look both the judge and then family members in the eyes as he shouted his allegiance to the gang...

The Fox Theater restaurant is proving a hard hole to fill. Dozens of restaurateurs have toured the 3,000-square-foot space, and no fewer than eight have said they can’t make a project pencil out at that site due to Oakland’s living wage requirement. The Fox hole’s fortunes could be turning, however. Business proposals from restaurateurs were due Nov. 17, and three were submitted. Phil Tagami, whose firm, California Capital Group, has managed the Fox rebirth, said that two other parties unaware of the formal proposal process expressed interest in the site, despite the wage requirements. He declined to say who submitted...

OAKLAND — A 15-year-old gang associate was in critical condition Friday after he was wounded twice by his own gun during a struggle with a 32-year-old he pointed the weapon at, police said. The man, who police said was a former paratrooper in the Honduras army, was not hurt and waited for police to respond to where the confrontation happened. He gave a statement to investigators before he was arrested on suspicion of assault while the district attorney's office determines whether he acted in self-defense. Police would not release the name of the teen or the adult pending the district...

Call it the Anti-Mall. The tree-lined stretch of College Avenue heading south from the Rockridge BART station in Oakland is a shopping mecca for miles around. But no hordes of desperate customers lined up for steep discounts on Friday. In this shrinking economy, the small, independently owned shops that anchor the Rockridge district are pinning their survival not on cost-cutting but on the loyalty of a limited customer base whose lives and values they study closely. Nishan Shepard, the founding owner of the toy and baby supply store Rockridge Kids, can tell you that 740 infants are born at nearby...

Michael Dellums, the son of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, was denied parole once again today for his second-degree murder conviction for killing a reputed drug dealer in Oakland in 1979, according to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Bill Boselli. Michael Dellums, 50, has been denied parole numerous times, most recently on Jan. 8, 2007, the same day that Ron Dellums was sworn in as Oakland's mayor. The California Board of Prison terms panel that presided over Michael Dellums' hearing today at the California State Prison, Solano, in Vacaville, where he is being held, decided he won't be eligible for another...