Oakland Ca

In the neighborhood where four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, a large makeshift memorial still adorns a sidewalk with flowers, notes and photographs of the slain police. Across the street lies another, smaller sidewalk memorial -- this one for the parolee who killed the officers. A cluster of African American women in front of the police memorial argued last week about a candlelight vigil planned for the felon, whom police had just linked by DNA to the rape of a 12-year-old.

Gambling halls and arts education may make strange bedfellows. But over the last three years, five Los Angeles-area card clubs have showered more than $100,000 on a Bay Area school for the arts some 400 miles away. The gifts offered more than a chance to help inner-city kids. They were an opportunity to please the state official who asked for the money, directly oversees the clubs and is widely viewed as the front-runner to be California's next governor: state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.

Oakland wasn't named for its redwoods, that's for sure. Yet a magnificent redwood forest once thrived at what is now the eastern edge of the metropolis. Oakland's redwoods are removed from other areas of coast redwoods--the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south and the state and national parks on California's north coast--which makes a walk in Redwood Regional Park all the more special.

Oakland pot activists fresh off a victory at local polls on the taxing of medical marijuana took their first official step Tuesday toward asking California voters to legalize pot. A proposed ballot measure filed with the California attorney general's office would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of pot. Homeowners could grow marijuana for personal use on garden plots up to 25 square feet.

After scattering hundreds of copies of her suicide note from the seventh-floor ledge of a downtown building, Mary Jesus held her nose and raised an arm in the air. Then, like a swimmer taking a plunge, she leapt to her death. "Goodbye cruel world and all that," said the note, which blamed her suicide on an eviction she had battled fiercely -- and unsuccessfully. "Everyone will say what they always say when something totally preventable isn't prevented, 'Why didn't anybody do anything?'

Several years ago the Oakland Museum of California was scheduled to host a traveling exhibition about photographers who died in Vietnam. So curator Marcia Eymann began to work on a companion show about the war's effect on the state. The photography show never made it to Oakland. But Eymann was so impressed by what she learned about the repercussions of the Vietnam War on California that the museum decided to make that the subject of a full-blown presentation. The result is "What's Going On?

The discovery Monday of a slain kidnap victim pushed to 167 the number of murders in a city that only hours earlier eclipsed the previous single-year homicide record, set last year. Eric Dorrough, 22, was found shot to death near a junior high school, said homicide Lt. Mike Sims. The victim had been taken from his home at gunpoint Sunday night. "We got a call from his wife that the husband was kidnaped but there were no ransom demands," said Sims.

Just a few blocks off Oakland's busy Jack London Square, Walter Hoye, a soft-spoken Baptist minister, was standing outside an abortion clinic, doing his best not to get arrested. Dressed in black and wearing his "Got Jesus?" ball cap, Hoye, 52, of Union City, Calif., held the hand-lettered sign he always brings: "God loves you and your baby. Let us help you." His black wire-rimmed sunglasses, perched halfway down his nose, gave him a faintly Hollywood air.

Prosecutors said Tuesday they would retry three former Oakland police officers on charges of beating and framing suspects, even after a jury admitted Sept. 30 that it was hopelessly deadlocked in the controversial case. The graveyard-shift officers, known as the Riders, had allegedly made illegal arrests in the city's tough northwest corner in the summer of 2000 before being turned in by a rookie cop who had followed one of the men for field training.

They were a firefighter shielding a woman from a falling power line; a nurse who supervised reviews of patient care; an architectural writer; a police patrol officer. Several were neighbors or belonged to the same family. The people who died in the devastating fire that ravaged the hills above Oakland and Berkeley apparently fell victim to the brutally, unexpectedly swift speed of the flames.

Just a few blocks off Oakland's busy Jack London Square, Walter Hoye, a soft-spoken Baptist minister, was standing outside an abortion clinic, doing his best not to get arrested. Dressed in black and wearing his "Got Jesus?" ball cap, Hoye, 52, of Union City, Calif., held the hand-lettered sign he always brings: "God loves you and your baby. Let us help you." His black wire-rimmed sunglasses, perched halfway down his nose, gave him a faintly Hollywood air.

A transit officer said Tuesday that an unarmed man who was fatally shot by another officer at an Oakland train station failed to obey her commands before his death. Bay Area Rapid Transit Officer Marysol Domenici testified during the fourth day of a hearing to determine whether former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle will stand trial for murder in the death of Oscar Grant.

A former bakery handyman pleaded guilty Thursday to killing two men, including an Oakland journalist who was writing about the bakery's finances. Devaughndre Broussard, 21, entered his plea to two counts of voluntary manslaughter as part of a deal with prosecutors. Broussard admitted to fatally shooting Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in August 2007 and another man, Odell Roberson Jr., a month earlier. Bailey's sister, Lorelei Waqia, and father, Chauncey Bailey Sr.

In the neighborhood where four Oakland police officers were killed last weekend, a large makeshift memorial still adorns a sidewalk with flowers, notes and photographs of the slain police. Across the street lies another, smaller sidewalk memorial -- this one for the parolee who killed the officers. A cluster of African American women in front of the police memorial argued last week about a candlelight vigil planned for the felon, whom police had just linked by DNA to the rape of a 12-year-old.

A new Oakland-based union -- the product of a brutal fight between the elected leaders of healthcare workers in Northern California and their superiors in Washington -- announced Tuesday that it had gained its first members. North American Healthcare agreed to recognize the National Union of Healthcare Workers as the representative of more than 350 nursing home workers at four of the company's facilities in Northern California, the union said.

By day, it's far too quiet at the site of a planned housing and retail development on a former Navy base in Oakland. At night, neighbors can hear the thieves come out. They rip out copper wire, haul away pipes and take anything else they can steal from dozens of buildings on the site, abandoned after Irvine developer SunCal Cos. fell victim to the economy.

Fated to live in the sunset shadows of San Francisco, Oakland has often been called an underdog town, but it's an underdog with a growl. People with money live in its hills, but Oakland, at heart, is a tough waterfront place, an unflinching antihero of a city that has earned its scars and the right to be suspicious. Maybe this put-upon feeling is a black thing. Thirty-five percent of Oakland's residents, a slight plurality, are African American, and the political stew boils.

As the death toll in last week's Oakland-Berkeley Hills fire climbed to 25, investigators said Tuesday the blaze that destroyed more than 3,000 homes "may have been purposely set." A primitive barbecue pit found near where arson investigators believe the blaze broke out is the focus of the continuing investigation, Fire Marshal James McMullen told a news conference held in front of Oakland Fire Station No. 1.

An outside party will take over the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency's investigation of all officers involved in the shooting of an unarmed man at a train station platform, BART officials said Thursday. Oscar Grant, 22, was fatally shot in the back while lying face down at the Fruitvale station early New Year's Day. Alameda County prosecutors have charged former BART Officer Johannes Mehserle with murder. He has pleaded not guilty.

The family of a 22-year-old man shot to death by a transit police officer on New Year's Day urged Oakland residents Thursday to remain calm and deplored the violence that erupted during a protest over the shooting a day earlier. The city bristled with anger and sorrow as store owners cleaned up the debris from the vandalism during Wednesday night's protest and officials announced that the Oakland Police Department would join in the investigation of Oscar J. Grant III's death.