Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Oakland, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
By 1966, only 16 of the city's 661 police officers were black. Tensions between the black community and the largely white police force were high, and police malfeasance against blacks was common.[39][46] The Black Panther Party was founded by Oakland City College (later Merritt College) students Huey Newton and Bobby Seale .[47]
It was also during the 1960s that the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club began to grow into a formidable motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate.[48][49] Its Oakland Clubhouse is still on Foothill Boulevard.
During the 1970s, Oakland began to experience serious problems with gang-controlled dealing of heroin and cocaine when drug kingpin Felix Mitchell created the nation's first large-scale operation of this kind.[38] Both violent crime and property crime increased during this period, and Oakland's murder rate rose to twice that of New York and many other major cities.[38]
In late 1973, the Symbionese Liberation Army assassinated Oakland's superintendent of schools, Dr. Marcus Foster, and badly wounded his deputy, Robert Blackburn. Two months later, two men were arrested and charged with the murder. Both received life sentences, though one was acquitted after an appeal and a retrial seven years later.[citation needed]
During the 1980s, crack cocaine became a serious problem in Oakland.
On May 24, 1990, a pipe bomb placed underneath traveling eco-activist Judi Bari's car seat exploded, tearing through her backside and nearly killing her. The bomb was placed directly under the driver's seat, not in the back seat or luggage area as it presumably would have been if Bari had been transporting it knowingly. Immediately after the 1990 car bombing, while Bari was in Oakland's Highland Hospital, she and a friend were arrested on suspicion of knowingly transporting the bomb. The Alameda County district attorney later dropped the case for lack of evidence, and in 2004 the FBI and the City of Oakland agreed to a $4 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by Bari's estate, and her friend, over their false arrest.[50]
In the early morning hours of January 1, 2009, unarmed civilian Oscar Grant was shot and killed by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle on a crowded platform at the Fruitvale BART Station in East Oakland.[63] Officers had subdued Grant in a prone position for allegedly resisting arrest, before Mehserle shot Grant in the back with his gun, which he claimed to have mistaken for his stun gun.[64] In the ensuing week, demonstrations and riots took place in downtown Oakland, with demonstrators citing police brutality and racial injustice as their motivation.[65] Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in July 2010, and sentenced to two years in prison. Both the verdict and sentencing set off further demonstrations in downtown Oakland, which included looting and destruction of property.[66][67]
On March 21, 2009, Oakland parolee Lovelle Mixon, 26, fatally shot four Oakland police officers, and wounded a fifth officer. At approximately 1 pm, Mixon shot and killed two officers during a routine traffic stop. Mixon fled the scene, hiding in his sister's nearby apartment, and shortly after 3 pm he killed two more officers. During the ensuing shootout, the police killed Mixon in self-defense and a fifth officer was wounded. Three of the officers killed were ranking sergeants, the first time the Oakland Police Department had lost a sergeant in the line of duty. It was the single deadliest day for sworn personnel in the department's history.[70]
On October 10, 2011, protesters and civic activists began "Occupy Oakland" demonstrations directed against national social and economic inequality at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Downtown Oakland.[71][72] The demonstrators set up an encampment which at one point consisted of "a miniature city" with as many as 150 tents.[73][74] At one point, a second encampment was established at Snow Park on Lake Merritt.[75] Oakland Police raided and dismantled the two protest sites at Frank Ogawa Plaza and Snow Park early in the morning on October 25. Later the same day, in efforts to reestablish the encampments, protesters clashed with police. Two officers and three protesters were injured and more than a hundred people were arrested.[76] On November 2, thousands marched upon and shut down the Port of Oakland.[77] Later that night, protests in downtown Oakland turned violent, with demonstrators vandalizing local businesses, overtaking a vacant building, and throwing projectiles at police.[78] At least two Iraqi war veterans were injured in the demonstrations, allegedly by police action.[79] On November 10, a man was shot and killed near the reestablished encampment.[80] By November 14, the encampment at the plaza in front of City Hall had been cleared, and it was announced by city officials the continued protests had cost the city $2.4 million.[81]
