Shootings Soar in Oakland; Children Often the Victims

Posted January 15, 2012

NEW YORK TIMES

By SHOSHANA WALTER JAN. 7, 2012

Five-year-old Gabriel Martinez Jr. died Dec. 30, shot as he played under a streetlight near his father’s taco truck on an East Oakland street corner. He was the third young child killed in Oakland since August, the 110th homicide of 2011, and the 199th juvenile shooting victim of more than 2,000 people who were victims of gun violence in an especially bloody year in an increasingly violent city.

Delays for Paramedics Draw Criticism in Oakland

Posted December 18, 2011

NEW YORK TIMES

By SHOSHANA WALTER

DEC. 17, 2011

Gunshots cracked the air on a sunny morning as two men led a group of high school teachers on a tour of a violent area of West Oakland. As the teachers fled to safety, the local guides hurried to the chaotic scene on the nearby corner of 13th and Peralta Streets.

After 20 years, Youth Alive continues its fight to end gun violence among Oakland’s young people

Posted November 30, 2011

OAKLAND NORTH

By Amina Waheed

Posted November 29, 2011 11:07 am

Over 22 years ago, Deane Calhoun sat in a meeting that would forever change her life and the lives of thousands of Oakland teens. In 1989, Calhoun, then a public health worker, listened in horror as Bruce Kennedy, a teacher at what was once known as Castlemont High School in East Oakland, told her and a group of other school district and city council officials that students had been caught playing Russian roulette in the locker room. In another instance, Kennedy said, a kid pulled out a gun on the school bus.

Poem for Youth Alive!

Posted November 11, 2011

By Marianne Williams

Marianne Williams, a Teens on Target Youth Leader, wrote this poem for Youth ALIVE! She performed it at Youth ALIVE!’s 20th Anniversary Celebration on November 10, 2011.

Occupy movement turns to extending appeal to broad segments of U.S. population

Posted November 2, 2011

Oakland Tribune

By Scott Johnson Oakland Tribune

November 2, 2011

OAKLAND – Daniel Wilkerson has a hard time relating to most of what he hears coming from the protesters at Occupy Oakland. He has no use for communism, and he thinks capitalism works perfectly well when done right.

Success story for Sacramento intervention program

Posted July 14, 2011

East Bay gunshot victim a success story for Sacramento intervention program

Sacramento Bee

July 2011

By Kim Minugh - kminugh@sacbee.com

In an Oakland street, Maurice Stroud took a bullet to the chest and one to a knee. Then, as he fled his masked gunman, he took three more.

In the Crossfire

Posted November 14, 2008

NEED Magazine

Excerpt from Issue #5, November 2008

Homicide is the leading cause of death for young people in Oakland.

The High Cost of Gun Violence

Posted June 14, 2008

EAST BAY EXPRESS

June 4, 2008

By Matthew Green 

On a Sunday afternoon in June of 2006, a young man we’ll call Michael Robinson was shot six times on a street in his West Oakland neighborhood. Paramedics rushed the bleeding seventeen-year-old to Highland Hospital’s trauma center, where a medical team treated his wounded legs, arms, and abdomen. Although they stopped his bleeding quickly, and the bullets just missed his major organs, Robinson still needed multiple surgeries. Like approximately 95 percent of the patients treated for violent injuries at Highland Hospital, he had no health insurance.

Five TNT Teenagers

Posted December 14, 2004

OAKLAND NORTH

December 2010

FIVE TEENAGERS talk about living with violence and trying to do something about it.  Ivan Brand says no one has the right to pull a gun on him. Bobbe Miller wants a safe environment for her baby nephew. La’Ban Wade gets ready for college. Dionte Williams reflects on loss. Jake Brand talks about the difference between a gang and a family.

JT