Safety
Two former Richmond Police Department officers were sentenced to probation and time in a halfway house and home detention respectively for illegally supplying minors with firearms. The judgment, delivered by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken on Tuesday, August 23, followed the conviction of Danny Harris, Jr. and Raymond Thomas, Jr. on charges filed in July 2011 that both men deliberately obstructed justice and tampered with evidence in the investigation of charges that Harris purchased firearms for two underage individuals while…
Contra Costa County officials are expected to vote tomorrow morning on how to spend a $19 million grant from the state to help deal with crowded county prisons. The funding follows the state’s decision last year to transfer responsibility for many non-violent offenders to local agencies. Members of the Contra Costa County Community Corrections Partnership have come up with several options for spending the money. Part of it, County Sheriff David Livingston and Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus agreed, should…
Jessie Phillips has lived in the same home from the time she was a little girl. If it wasn’t for her home, she says, she wouldn’t live in Richmond. “It’s just too hard,” she said. Just the sound of sirens sends her into a fit of tears. Each siren sound reminds her of the death of her son Anthony Robinson. Robinson was shot in his car following an altercation at a gas station in Richmond on July 18, 2004. His mother Jessie says her son and his friends were followed in his car to Albany, just off the Gilman exit. Shots were fired, and her son Anthony was hit in the head by one of the bullets. He spent four days on life support before he died. On his birthday each year, December 16, Phillips takes out a memorial in the West County Times in his memory. It’s something that gives her peace, she says. Jessie credits prayer, family and community support for keeping her going. She has two remaining children: Kenneth Robinson, 25, and Jessica Walker, 32. She regularly attends events hosted and organized by Charlene Harris of Healing Circles of Hope ( Mother’s Against Senseless Killing, MASK).
On Tuesday evening, Richmond residents gathered at Target to celebrate the kick off of the city’s annual National Night Out event, a series of neighborhood block parties designed to improve neighborhood safety by getting residents to know one another and making them familiar with the officers in their local police department.
“It will be a great experience,” said my fellow reporter after he suggested I go on a ridealong with a Richmond police officer. “They’ll strap you in a bulletproof vest, take you for a spin at night, and you’ll see some crazy stuff.” For a visiting reporter from the Netherlands, this sounds promising.
In Richmond, finding a way around violence is a daily struggle. But as the city struggles to get a handle on youth violence, a local skateboard park serves as a reminder that, sometimes, peace can come from an unlikely source.
Not too long ago, the men now sitting around this table at the Contra Costa Probation Office were in prison. “I want to ask how long have you been in prison,” Chief Adult Probation Officer Philip Kader asks them. They respond with three, six and even 12 times. But now they’re getting a taste of their newly found freedom.
On Friday evening, 13 Richmond residents gathered at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in North Richmond to spread the word about life without bullets. Armed with purple fliers, they exited the small church with a gentle gait and marched two-by-two towards the Las Deltas Housing Project, one of the city’s hot spots for gun violence. The purpose of the walk, also known as Richmond Ceasefire/Lifelines to Healing, was to meet people hanging out on their stoops and talk about the…
Orlando Lamar Yancy made people smile. His friends and family told stories of how Yancy, known in his North Richmond neighborhood as “Rusty” or “Bucket,” would crack jokes on the basketball court—and just about anywhere else. But that all ended on May 14, when Yancy, 22, was shot multiple times as he walked in front of the Senior Center at the corner of Fifth Street and Silver Avenue. Yancy, a lifelong North Richmond resident, was pronounced dead at the scene….