It’s a hot afternoon at the Lucky A’s field in North Richmond, and the dozen or so kids who showed up for baseball practice today are sticking to a strip of shade next to the chain link fence. A couple boys are playing catch. Three others take up as a pitcher, a batter and a catcher. There’s a crack of the bat, and a ball flies into the sun. Kaaliyah Fluker, 11, the only girl on the team, watches, eyes…
Gunshots rang throughout Richmond on Saturday night, injuring two people in two separate incidents. A male victim who was in critical condition after suffering three gunshot wounds was flown in an emergency aircraft to a hospital Saturday evening. The victim, whose name has not been released, was shot on the 600 block of Harrison Drive just before 8 p.m., not far from where two teenagers were shot to death two nights earlier. Richmond Police Detective Nicole Abetkov said the victim…
A pair of teenage siblings were shot to death Thursday night outside a residence on McGlothen Way in the northern part of Richmond. According to a spokesperson from the Richmond Police Department, two unknown people walked up to a group of people who were talking and opened fire. “It looks like they were just firing into the group that was standing outside,” said Lieutenant Bisa French Airian Holly, 16, and his sister, Mercedes Williams, 19, were pronounced dead at the…
A crowd gathered in mourning on a street corner in Richmond on Wednesday evening to honor the life of Dimarea Young, a 19-year-old man who was shot and killed on this block the day before. Friends and neighbors, pastors and politicians, police officers and violence disrupters stood side by side, heads bowed. “We place him up,” said Reverend Alvin Bernstein, who was leading the group in a prayer. “We pray for the mother. We lift them up.” A woman from…
An unknown suspect opened fire on three people this morning on the 300 block of 28th Street in Richmond, killing one person and injuring two. Police received a call at 11:10 a.m. notifying them of the shootings. By the time they arrived at the scene, one adult male was dead. The other two victims were transported to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries. “They were walking around in the neighborhood,” said Richmond Police Detective Nicole Abetkov, noting that the victims…
Last week, RAW Talent hosted its second open mic night. Kids from across Richmond and the East Bay came out to share original poems and songs. Organizers hoped the event would be a safe place for kids to be creative and show off their talents. http://vimeo.com/62392823
Contra Costa County has deported more people than any other county in the Bay Area through Secure Communities, a partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement agencies, according to data ICE released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Contra Costa District Attorney filed charges earlier this week against a 30-year-old man for attempting to shoot and kill several Richmond Police officers who were responding to a 911 call. The defendant, Elston Young, has been charged with three felonies for pointing his gun toward police officers earlier this month. Before the officers arrived, Young allegedly fired his gun near B Street and Nevin Avenue in Richmond. The shots were picked up by Richmond’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system. Young…
As they have every Sunday for the last 70 years, members of the Davis Chapel filed into church on a recent weekend and took their seats in the red-cushioned pews. The first sunlight of the day streamed in through the stained-glass windows and members of the choir took their positions behind the altar. Clapping their hands and stepping side-to-side in rhythm, the white-robed choir raised its voice in harmony and sang: “Oh to the blood of Jeee—sus. To the blood…
Contra Costa County officials approved a budget of more than $20 million at a meeting in Martinez today to both continue operations in the jails, probation department and courts, as well as develop community partnerships geared around reentry. More than a year after California transferred responsibility for low-levels felons to county jurisdiction, the Community Corrections Partnership (CCP) unanimously approved $15.4 million of the total budget to continue operations and expand some county departments. The move came just in time before…
When you think of a jail, what comes to mind? Bars. A cell without windows. Agitated prisoners. Maybe I watch too much TV. But when you go to the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, be prepared for something different. This is a model jail where inmates can get a high school diploma or learn a trade. It’s also overcrowded, and its operations are threatened. “So before you go outside to the main part of the jail, I would like…
The trial for a 2009 double homicide in a Richmond restaurant opened Wednesday in Martinez with District Attorney Aron DeFerrari describing a brutal execution motivated by rivalry between Norteño and Sureño gang members, and attorneys representing the defendants describing their clients as having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Steven Miranda and Ignacio Ruiz are charged with two counts of murder plus conspiracy to commit murder and gang offenses for their roles in the shooting of Alvaro…
Richmond has been picked over by thieves. A stump of a pipe, the tops of concrete floor boxes pried up from the sidewalk, a lonely hinge hanging from a roof. These remains, which RPD Captain Mark Gagan easily spots throughout the city, are evidence of scrap metal theft that has plagued the city for years. It’s likely that a thief took the bronze pipe, the copper wires in the floor box, and the aluminum gutter held up by the hinge….