Tag: violent crime

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A Month-Plus of Oakland Violence

On Super Bowl Sunday, there was a shooting in the 3300 block of Adeline Street in West Oakland. What made it stand out from the background of shootings in the city was the toll: seven reported wounded. So that afternoon, I put together a map and list of the reported shootings over the past week. That spate of violence was enough for Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan to call a press conference, promise to redouble the department’s efforts to fight crime, and to appeal to the public to report shootings and illegal guns to police.

There’s little evidence that the pace of the shootings has slackened since then. The toll for the past month, going back to January 29, is 14 dead and 29 wounded (one of the killings was a stabbing; one of those wounded was a man shot by police after a reported robbery).

But that toll minimizes the frequency of firearms incidents in the city. From Feb. 1 through today, the Oakland police report 45 incidents of “assault with a firearms on a person,” 41 incidents of shooting at dwellings or vehicles (either inhabited or uninhabited), 94 robberies involving firearms, seven cases of willfully discharging a firearm in a negligent manner, 14 cases of exhibiting firearms during the commission of another crime, two cases of carjacking with a gun (there are a few incidents in the OPD database listed under more than one of these categories).

An updated map is below. Each placemarker includes the available details on the incidents reported (I’ve limited the maps to homicides, reported shootings of people, and other incidents in which guns were apparently fired).

One pattern in the map: It’s striking to see how few shootings occur above (east or north of) Interstate 580. If there’s a geographic boundary to shootings that seems to hold for most of the city, that’s it.


View A Month of Oakland Violence in a larger map

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Eight Days of Oakland Violence

[Update, 2/27/12: I’ve updated the map below with reported shootings for the rest of February 2012. An explanatory post is here: A Month-Plus of Oakland Violence.]

Twenty-eight people shot, and seven of them killed, since last Sunday. That’s the toll in Oakland, as far as I can glean from news reports (detailed below; those numbers exclude about 45 other episodes, mostly robberies, in which guns were used in Oakland).

Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a lot, though the Oakland Police Department’s latest weekly crime report, with preliminary numbers through last Sunday, actually suggests an overall drop in violent crimes so far this year compared to the year-ago period and the three-year running average. Anyway, the thing that made me do this was the report of seven people shot on a West Oakland street earlier today. News reports of the past week are listed below, and below them is a quick Google Map I put together.

Sunday, Feb. 5: Seven shot Sunday afternoon in West Oakland and North Oakland: Victims said to be in stable condition after a possible shoot out between two groups in 3300 block of Adeline Street.

Saturday, Feb. 4: One killed in East Oakland shooting Saturday: “About 2:40 p.m., officers responded to a report of a shooting in the 400 block of 105th Avenue, near Knight Street, in the Sobrante Park neighborhood, police said. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Police said they have no motive and nobody in custody.”

Friday, Feb. 3: Four wounded in Oakland shooting Friday night: “About 10 p.m., officers responded to a call reporting multiple gun shots fired in the intersection of 45th Avenue and International Boulevard, Officer Kevin McDonald said. The victims were taken by ambulance to an East Bay hospital, police said.”

Friday, Feb. 3: Murder report: Oakland Police Department tabular data (the department’s running summary of serious crimes in the city) includes a report of a murder in the 9800 block of C Street (East Oakland) at 12:20 p.m. I haven’t found a media account of this case.

Thursday-Friday, Feb. 2-3: Two killed, three wounded in spate of shootings in Oakland: “Two men were killed and three others wounded in five separate shootings between Thursday morning and Friday afternoon.”

Thursday, Feb. 2: Murder report: Oakland Police Department tabular data (the department’s running summary of serious crimes in the city) includes a report of a murder in the 400 block of 19th Street (downtown, close to the 19th Street BART station) at 7:42 p.m. I have found no media account of this case.

Thursday, Feb. 2: Oakland taco truck shootout wounds two: “A robbery attempt at an Oakland taco truck ended in a shootout early Thursday that wounded the taco vendor and an assailant, the latest in a spate of holdups involving food trucks in the city, police said.”

Sunday, Jan. 29: Two injured in East Oakland shooting: “The shooting was reported at around 7:50 p.m. in the 8900 block of Macarthur Boulevard, an Oakland police officer said. The two victims drove away from the scene on Interstate Highway 580. California Highway Patrol officers stopped to assist the victims, and they were transported by ambulance to a local hospital.”

Sunday, Jan. 29: Two dead four injured in three Oakland shootings: “The most violent shooting happened in the central part of the city, in the 1700 block of 20th Avenue at 1:48 a.m., where four people were fired on. One died at the scene, and a second was in critical condition. The remaining two are in stable condition. Police had just come from the 3400 block of Ettie Street in West Oakland, where another person had been shot and killed.” (The Oakland Police Department tabular data shows the murder on Ettie Street, in the northwest corner of West Oakland near the MacArthur Maze, as occurring in the 3200 block.

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