Safety
Richmond Artists With Talent will perform Saturday a one-night-only urbanized version of Romeo and Juliet, swapping William Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter verse for street slang and slam poetry in a familiar tale of two star-crossed lovers — this time from the wrong sides of the tracks. Te’s Harmony, written by Donte Clark of RAW Talent, presents a gritty, albeit artistic, view of Richmond, a city divided by a North-versus-Central gang turf war through the eyes of Te (Clark) and Harmony (D’neise…
Richmond had its first homicide of 2013 on Monday. The Richmond Police Department identified the victim as Richmond resident William Wheeler, 26. His body was found at around 3 a.m., alongside the train tracks near Lucas Park, at Lucas Avenue and 10th Street. He died of apparent gunshot wounds. It was the city’s first homicide since late November. Richmond ended 2012 with 18 homicides, the lowest number since 2001. Neighbors near the park said they heard gunshots around midnight or…
The Richmond Police Department held its first annual Foster Youth Conference on Saturday at the LaVonya Dejean Middle School on Macdonald Avenue. About 100 foster youth, foster parents, Richmond police officers, staff from West County Children and Family Services and community members filled the multipurpose room early in the morning for a day full of workshops to promote community involvement and provide resources needed by children and teens in foster care. “There are caring adults here who understand that it…
Five Richmond police officers were promoted in a ceremony Thursday morning, and Code Enforcement Officer Dave Ragowski received a Lifesaving Award for successfully negotiating with a Richmond resident who had threatened to commit suicide.
On Friday, Nathanial Burris was sentenced in Contra Costa Superior Court in Martinez to the death penalty for the August, 2009, double murder of his ex-girlfriend Deborah Ann Ross and her friend Ersie “Chuckie” Everette at the toll plaza of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Burris was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in November 2012; the same jury also recommended the death penalty following a weeklong penalty phase of the trial. California law requires that the presiding judge…
In the wake of recent mass shootings—including one in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which took 26 lives, and one in late July at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, which left 12 dead—an East Bay politician is pushing for new state restrictions on the sale of ammunition in California. The move has received widespread support from city and school officials in cities like Oakland and Richmond, which struggle with high rates of violent crime.
After a two-week break, the trial of Steven Miranda, 23, and Ignacio Ruiz, 31, for the 2009 double homicide in a Richmond restaurant continued Monday in the Contra Costa Superior Courthouse in Martinez with expert testimony on DNA and forensics. Miranda and Ruiz are each charged with two counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and gang offenses for their alleged roles in the shooting that left Alvarado Garcia-Pena, 23, and Intaz Ahmed, 32, dead inside Alvarado Bar and Grill….
The Kennedy High School Eagles vie for a win at the playoffs despite a tragic loss.
There is an African Proverb that I am fond of quoting. It says: “The experience of one generation becomes the history of the next, and the history of several generations becomes the traditions of a people.” On December 14, 2012 like many Americans and peoples from around the world, I found myself once again extremely grieved by the horrible reality that gun violence IS in many of our American, particularly urban communities. We here in Richmond experience and understand that…