http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicl
Return to regular view


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oakland spurt in teen killings
- Jason B. Johnson and Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writers




Marcellus Haley, 18, was gunned down because he asked out the wrong girl. Brandon Jackson, 16, died trying to stop a car burglary. William Guzman and Michael Walker, both 14, were killed the same day -- 8 miles apart -- because they had friends in gangs.

The four share a common link: They are among the surging number of teenagers who have been killed in Oakland street violence this year.

As of Saturday, nearly 30 percent of the city's homicide victims -- 26 out of 88 this year -- are teenagers, and the number of youth slayings is on track to double 2005's total, when 15 of 94 homicide victims were 19 years old or younger.

In 2002, the last time homicides spiked dramatically in the city, 15 teenagers were killed out of a total of 113 victims, or 13 percent. The most teenage victims in a year since then was 16 in 2004 -- 18 percent of 88 total deaths.

Much of the violence is driven by increased gang activity, drug dealing and a willingness to use guns to settle the smallest of disputes, according to police, prosecutors and community activists.

"In Oakland, the stakes are a lot higher," said homicide investigator Sgt. James Morris. "Some of these young people, like Mr. Haley, just don't realize how dangerous it can be. There are some very tough, violent young people in this town who resort to firearms to resolve their disputes."

LaJazz Harper said it's easy to grow accustomed to the violence. The 16-year-old junior at Castlemont High School in East Oakland has attended 15 funerals in recent years -- all for friends and relatives who were killed.

"When you're around something so long, it just becomes normal," Harper said.

Most of the funerals were for young men. But the memorial service that haunts her most was for a girl because "you expect it more when it's a guy." Her best friend since fifth grade, Tommiesha Jones, 16, was shot while riding in a friend's car in Richmond two years ago.

"I don't even know how to describe it," said Harper, who has pledged to attend no more funerals. "It was sad. ... That one just really shook me up."

Increasingly violent gangs

Gang violence is also on the rise. The number of killings attributed to gang members has increased from 12 percent of the total last year to 30 percent so far this year, police records show.

Ever Ramos had lived in Oakland for only five months after coming from Honduras; he was shot to death Jan. 15 in the Fruitvale district. He was on his way home from work at a landscape company and stopped at a convenience store on Coolidge Avenue when a car pulled up and a person inside asked what gang Ramos claimed, police said. As Ramos, who was not in a gang, shook his head to say no, someone in the car opened fire and killed him.

Police said Ramos and several others who were shot were victims of profiling by gang members, who see an unfamiliar Latino male and assume he's in a rival gang.

"They call it checking," said Sgt. Brian Medeiros, who is investigating the Ramos case. "These Hispanic gangs walk up or drive up and want to know what gang you're in. If you give the wrong answer -- or maybe no answer -- they'll shoot."

That's also what happened to Walker, who was shot to death May 25 in the 800 block of West Grand Avenue after a carload of young men -- believed to be Sure�os -- called to him and opened fire when he didn't respond, police said.

Like Walker, Guzman and Alberto Salvador Villarreal, 15, had friends involved in gangs. They both died in separate incidents -- Guzman on May 25 in the 9200 block of International Boulevard and Villarreal on Jan. 14 in the Fruitvale district -- when rivals came around and sprayed the area with gunfire.

Growing Latino gangs

Police said increased tension among the city's three major Latino gangs -- the Norte�os, Sure�os and the Border Brothers -- is responsible for at least seven of the 26 homicides involving teenagers.

Membership has grown as the city's Latinos have spread from the Fruitvale district to parts of East Oakland close to the San Leandro border and West Oakland. These gangs have an estimated 500 core members and perhaps another 500 associates, often called wannabes, said Lt. Pete Sarna, who oversees the gang unit.

In 2002, police said many of the killings were a result of ex-convicts coming home from prison and trying to re-establish themselves in the street-corner drug trade. But younger dealers had taken over those areas, and deadly feuds ensued.

"Street-level drug dealing is really the root of most of the crime in this city," Sarna said. Violent crime "tends to revolve around intense street-level drug markets."

Police said that tension over drug corners is still a factor in some killings, particularly in several neighborhoods just north of the West Oakland BART Station. The victims are not just drug dealers: In the past six months, eight people with no connection to drug sales were shot, two of them fatally.

Two of the victims -- Lath La, 58, and Clinnetta Simril, 57 -- were each struck in the head by a stray bullet in separate incidents in West Oakland. La, a Cambodian immigrant, was hit as she stepped out of a friend's van at the corner of Eighth and Adeline streets. Simril, who grew up in West Oakland, was shot as she walked to a bus stop after cooking dinner for her elderly mother, who lives on Peralta Street.

The 'grinding' connection

So far, 57 of the homicides this year have occurred between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., when in many neighborhoods the only people on the street are young men "grinding" -- selling drugs.

Youths interviewed on drug corners say the average dealer makes only $80 to $100 a day, and there's always the danger of being robbed by stickup crews. As a result, many are more willing to use violence as a means of settling disputes and protecting their turf.

Police said Jackson was killed in a case where a nonviolent crime escalated into a murder. On Feb. 25, Jackson was riding home in a friend's car when he spotted thieves breaking into a neighbor's car in the 1800 block of 101st Avenue. After Jackson yelled at them to stop, they opened fire, killing the Castlemont High sophomore.

Police said about 12 to 15 suspects in this year's slayings are also teenagers but declined to be specific because most of the cases are still being investigated and the suspects have not been arrested or charged.

"What we're starting to see is a fairly dramatic increase in violent crime committed by juveniles," Sarna said.

Many young people behave like hardened violent criminals, police said, pointing out that several killed this year also were suspects in homicides or nonfatal shootings. Lt. Ersie Joyner of the Oakland police homicide unit said Brian Champaco, 17, was shot to death Feb. 27 as he rode in a van right after participating in a drive-by shooting in the 1200 block of 77th Avenue. Joyner said one of the would-be victims fired back with an assault rifle as the van started to make another pass, killing Champaco and wounding two others.

Investigators said Ronald "Ron Ron" Brazier, 17, who was killed in an Aug. 2 shootout with police near 65th Avenue and International Boulevard, was a suspect in multiple crimes, including the slaying of Robert Lockson on April 13. Gerald Figg, 17, who was with Brazier at the time he was killed, has been charged as an adult with attempted murder in a case in which a man was left paralyzed. Figg also is a suspect in another killing but has not yet been charged, police said.

"It is tragic that a teenager is so disconnected from society that he would open fire on a police officer," said Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who announced this month Operation Ceasefire, a program designed to get young suspects to renounce violence or face pressure from police and prosecutors. "But it shows that there are some people even at that young age that must be taken off the streets, perhaps forever. It's sad but it's the reality here."

Youths' sense of fatalism

Young people in some of the city's most crime-plagued neighborhoods said there is a sense of fatalism among those who turn to drug dealing and gangs. Several said they and their peers don't have access to well-paying jobs or they have criminal records that make it hard to find work. And once they are convicted of one felony, even as a juvenile, they are locked out of most jobs.

Jesus El-Lazard, 19, lives in a West Oakland neighborhood where he watches drug deals day and night and sees young dealers grow old fast.

"They live like they're hopeless. Most of the dope guys don't think they're going to live past 35," El-Lazard said.

In the East Oakland neighborhood where Eric "Pooh" West, 20, hung out, friends said he knew the dangers of the streets. Two of his older brothers, Kendric and Deric, were killed in 1996 and 1999.

Rather than stay with his mother and father at their home in Antioch, where they moved in 2004, West was drawn back to the familiar corners of East Oakland. West believed that if he was destined to die, there was little he could do to change his fate, friends said.

On June 7, West was shot outside a used auto parts store in the 8400 block of San Leandro Street by a man with whom he'd been having a dispute over a car. West was willing to settle things with a fistfight, but his opponent threatened to shoot him, friends said.

As West then turned to walk away, he was shot from behind, becoming Oakland's 59th homicide of 2006. His parents, George and Coynell West, feel frustrated and alone.

"I went down to the scene to see my son laying on the ground and a yellow tarp over him -- it was very disturbing," George West said.

"We never really got over the other two," Coynell West added. "Parents aren't supposed to bury their kids; kids are supposed to bury their parents."

She has strong feelings about the killers.

"As Christians, we really are supposed to forgive them," Coynell West said. "But I don't know how. We're not there yet."

Poverty and hopelessness

Some community leaders who work with youths in high-crime areas said poverty and a sense of hopelessness are the causes behind the killings.

"The solution is plugging more people into jobs, putting more money into our schools. And that's not being done," said Venus Rodriguez, director of Let's Get Free, a youth program that's part of Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Khadijah Wheatfall said she did everything she could to keep her son, Marcellus Haley, out of harm's way. She moved Haley and his two sisters out of East Oakland -- first to San Leandro then to Union City -- when they were in elementary school "because Oakland is too crazy, too violent, especially for raising a young man."

But because of money problems, she was forced to move back to her parents' home in East Oakland last year. Her son dropped out of high school and began hanging out with a group of young men when he wasn't working part time as a retail clerk.

Haley got one teenage girl pregnant and then fell in love with another one, whose boyfriend then threatened to kill Haley if he didn't get lost. Haley dismissed the threat as trash talk and kept visiting the 17-year-old girl at her parents' home in West Oakland, his family said.

On Feb. 16, as Haley stood talking to some friends outside his aunt's apartment in the 3600 block of Coolidge Avenue, a gunman walked up and shot Haley several times.

Investigators believe the boyfriend, whose name is not being released, is responsible. But authorities have not arrested him "because everyone is afraid to testify," Morris said.

"My son told me about the threats, but he was in love and he didn't listen," Wheatfall said last week, sobbing. "I was trying to move us away, but I was too late. The streets got him first."

After seven months, she cannot accept that her only son is gone.

"Sometimes I think I'm dreaming that my son is dead and I'm at the funeral and all I have to do is wake up and he'll be alive," Wheatfall said. "I wish I could just hear his laugh one more time. He had a great laugh."

Page A - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... MICIDE.TMP


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
e/archive/2006/08/20/OAKHOMICIDE.TMP