Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

This was from the Yahoo Adams Point Message Board: A friend called this a.m. to say he and two others were walking home yesterday mid-evening and were held up at gun point by one man: black, wearing black hoodie and black pants. This occurred on Euclid between Lagunitas and Van Buren. Thankkfully, no one got hurt. He will post more details himself when he gets to a computer with Internet service, but in the meantime, I wanted neighbors to be alert.

This is from the Adams Point Yahoo! Message Board. Hello. On very short notice, City Attorney John Russo's office was able to arrange for Mr. Russo to join us at our meeting next week. He will take questions, and present some information about a new joint effort between the OPD, the Alameda County DA's office, and the Oakland City Attorney's office to crack down on "chronic non-felony crimes" such as disorderly conduct, illegal dumping, drug-related offenses, disturbing the peace and selling stolen property. See the website for the City Attorney: http://www.oaklandcityattorney.org/. Beat 14X Problem Solving Officer Madlansacay will be joining us for the first time in a few months as well, so if you have questions about recent crimes or related matters, please bring those to his attention during the Q&A with him. Below is the text of the meeting agenda. I will also post a copy in Word Document format in the Files section of the Yahoo Group. Incid...

According to the blog Oakland Geology, Adams Point, which is boardered by Grand Avenue, Harrison, 1-580, and Oakland Avenue -- forming a kind of weird triangle, was named after Edson Adams, who was one of the first land owner / squatters in Oakland. There's your trivia for today.

Easy Lounge Fun On Wednesday Nights Ok. Those of you who are frequent readers of this blog space know that I've had problems with the Easy Lounge and some "unusual" bar service in the past. But I'm here to explain that's all gone. I went Wednesday night and had a fantastically relaxing time. To be totally frank, the vibe at Easy Lounge is different when two female bartenders are at the helm as opposed to the normal set of males and testosterone-laden service. The star of the show is Sylvia, who's an informative and personable image for Easy. Indeed, she's "easy to get along with and fun to talk to after a day of work. It's also the first time I've ever seen Tom Cruise' movie Cocktail. Ok. Stop with the frowning.

I have seen this group of people dancing and moving only once, and as I was in a car on the way to somewhere else, wasn't able to stop and discover when they met again. This video -- not mine -- was taken as these Oaklanders (I hope) were doing the Salsa thing under the "columns" at the end of Lake Merritt near Mac Arthur Blvd. If anyone watching this can add more detaills, please do in the comments section!

I saw today's Adams Point Yahoo Message Board email to me and this bit of news stuck out like a sore thumb: I don't have a lot of details, however, here's what I heard from my neighbor (who doesn't have internet) My neighbor, a young woman, was waiting for a ride from friends at @ midnight on Weds at the corner of Jayne & Lee. A foreign make car (Corolla?) drove up Lee from Vernon, turned onto Jayne and doubleparked. Two young men got out of the car and chased the young woman who tried to hide out in one of the apartment buildings on Lee. They caught her and took her purse at gunpoint, ran back to their car and drove away. My neighbor describes the attack as opportunistic--the guys in the car saw her and decided to relieve her of her cash, cards and keys. The assault and robbery have been reported to the police The good news: She's not hurt--just scared. The bad news: she lost her purse we have armed robbers cruising the neighborhood. Please be careful. and this...

From the Yahoo! district message board for the Adams Point area.. Posted by: "Banh, Hoang" hbanh@oaklandnet.com hlbee Fri Feb 29, 2008 10:49 am (PST) Hi AdamsPoint folks, This is a meeting organized by District 2 City Council Office, but it will include the OPD Area 2 Commander and his staff. Adams Pt. is in the Area 2, which consists of Police Service Areas 3 and 4. Reducing Crime in Oakland Wednesday, March 5 6:30pm to 8:30pm Edna Brewer Middle School, Panther Theater, 3748 13th Ave at E. 38th St This meeting will give audience members an opportunity to hear directly from Oakland Police commanders about public safety efforts in District 2 and the rest of Oakland. Q & A with your Councilmember and OPD to follow.

I saw this at the APAC 14 X Yahoo Group: > Hi All, > > I just posted a recent photo of the flower thief. See the group's ""Photos" folder, and inside > that, a folder called, not too cleverly, "Suspect Photos." > > I'm still trying to determine for certain that he and "Smiley" are one and the same, though > we've gotten some confirmation on that from a few different neighbors. It's also unclear > whether he's still of interest to the police. Several of us have seen him around since he was > supposedly picked up, so we're not sure if the police are done with him, etc. > > At the very least, he's stealing flowers from all over the area. At worst, he's dangerous. If > anyone has any additional information, please post. > > Also, the Suspect Photos folder is public. Anyone ought to be able to add to that folder. > > Thanks, > > Mary Which caused me to write this reply. H...

The Guardian Angels established an Oakland, California chapter in 2007 to help fight crime. Now, they need more Oaklanders to help them. Here's more on the program and you can call 510-459-9566.

Just a video of the mural, but it says a lot about what the artist thinks of Oakland. Take a look:

This Yahoo! Message Board post really bothered me: Around 4pm today there was a young African-American (teenager 15-18yo) on a bike wearing a black jacket and black knit cap. I watched him ride his bike up and down Vernon a few times checking out cars and apartments. I called the OPD non-emergency number just in case for peace of mind. It seemed like he was checking out the neighborhood. Just thought I would give everyone a heads up. That caused me to answer back with a plea for all to first, ask questions. That teenager could very well be someone who lives in the neighborhood who's just riding close to home. I talk to people; so should you. If you're reading this and have some weird racial boundary issues, do us all a favor and get rid of them. Please. Thanks!

Amanda Stokes, a 33-year-old blonde white female at 5 foot 4 inches is missing and has been since Sunday, November 25th. According to a flyer that's posted at Oakland's Cafe De Bartolo on Grand Avenue, her car was found at 5000 Park Blvd -- a Black 2001 Honda Accord -- across from the Lutheran Church. If you recognize the photo and live in the Adams Point / China Hill area, it's because she worked at Cafe De Bartolo. If you have any information, please call 404-931-7044. Here are other photos of Amanda with friends.

The 55,000 square-foot Whole Foods Market has just opened today at 27th and Harrison and brings good news and the promise of reviatalization to an area that has been waiting for both for too long. I was given a tour of the new place one day before its opening by Jolyn Bibb, Marketing Specialist of Store Openings for Whole Foods. While the video shows the store and what Jolyn said, I can tell you its quite a place to be in. A breath of fresh air. There's an official opening today which begins with a "Bread and Baking" ceremony at 8:45 am before the doors open at 9 AM. Through the day there will be music, food samples, and a guest appearance by famous local chef Paul Bertolli. Plus, reusable Whole Foods Market Green Bags will be given to the first 5,000 customers with a purchase of $15 or more, and a raffle for a giant gift basket filled with a variety of products. There's a lot of food stations in this facility as well. There's something called a dine-i...

This is a shocking report delivered as a video by me and about a document and its findings called "Violent, Property, Crime & Arrest Rates" in Oakland. The video has the details and I'll lay them out in a text fashion in another blog post.

From The Yahoo Message Board For 14X NCPC You are cordially invited to a NEW NEIGHBORHOOD EVENT Adams Point Social Hour Los Cantaros Restaurant & Taqueria 1st Friday of every month 6:00-7:00 p.m. Stop by Los Cantaros, 336 Grand Avenue, and look for your neighbors with the Adams Point Stickers. Meet your neighbors, buy an evening treat, and maybe top the night off with a walk to Art Murmur, Oakland's free art gallery night (http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com). Cheers! From, The Adams Point Action Council Board

Greetings Neighbors! We need some people to step in and help Hoang Bahn, our public services coordinator, run Wednesday's quarterly neighborhood meeting. I have to phase out my involvement in the group, and thanks to the efforts of various people in the community, we have some very good proactive plans underway for improving the neighborhood and making it safer and more enjoyable. But this does require people to get involved, if nothing else to bring our needs to the attention of the city. So, please, I know everyone is busy, but if you are at all interested in getting more involved in improving the neighborhood, please email Hoang at: HBanh@oaklandnet. com. She has been working super hard for us, but she only can do her work with our input and help. So, please, drop her a line and let her know you want to help. Take care, Charles

It's one thing to have one writer like me take a break and work on other aspects of a several thousand page site, but it's quite another when a website with a group of writers doens't make a single post but once in three months. I'm writing about The Grand Lake Guardian. Unlike this blog, which is part of a 50-blog network, I never believed the Grand Lake Guardian got much traffic at all, even though it's insider fan(s) objected to this point-of-view. When I checked the traffic using Compete, there wasn't enough activity for it to register stats. On Alexa, the only report was that it ranked 6,944,395 of all websites, but there was no 3 month average for it. What this means is that the site's traffic is so low, it's difficult to register. This blog's part of Blogger, so it's harder for those systems to measure Oakland Focus Traffic. But I can say that the blog is read each day or some posting is -- between 5 times and as many as 200 times a...

I walked into a local restaurant off Piedmont Avenue and got both a great meal and a great conversation with two Oakland School teachers. Unfortunately, I learned that one of them was just mugged at gunpoint on Palm Avenue last week. That's the same street I live on. The pattern's becoming all too familar: white women being the target of someone Black or Latino in their teens or maybe 20 at best. I stopped writing for a while here because I was sick to my stomach of reporting crime. I still am.

This area continues to be plagued by night-time crime. While District Two and District Three councilmembers plan a town hall meeting on high rises around the Lake, people are planning to hold up, mug, rape, and in some cases murder other residents around the Lake. This is ridiculous. To me, the answer is simply for people to be nosy. To get to know each other. To ask questions. To be watchful. I mean look at the chatter from the Yahoo! Message Board: I am just amazed by all of the stories...it is never ending. Lighting will help, driving around and surveying your area will help, but ultimately they have the power and are our own breed of terrorists - people's livelihoods are being ruined. Have there been any arrests ever? I never hear of any! -----Original Message----- From: 15X_NCPC@yahoogroup s.com To: 15X_NCPC@yahoogroup s.com Sent: Fri Jan 19 08:03:19 2007 Subject: RE: [15X_NCPC] Another car break in A man who lives in the 300 block of Wayne was mugged at gunpoint. He had ...