Safety
Richmond has taken a step other, larger cities nationwide have taken with some success: Launching and funding an agency to conduct community outreach and crime intervention to stem violence before it occurs.
Without the eyes of news media fixed on them, district board members have displayed no urgency to protect Richmond’s largest school with fences and cameras.
Richmond’s YouthWORKS, a city-run youth-employment program, employed 705 local teens and young adults ages 16-21 last summer at 140 Bay Area public and private work sites. The civic youth jobs program is one the nation’s largest in proportion to the population of the city it serves.
Total homicides this year stood at 45 as of Nov. 6, nearly double the number killed in all of 2008, an increase that has raised renewed concern among city leaders and law enforcement officials. Twenty-seven homicides were recorded in all of 2008. Forty-plus homicide totals were the norm for most of this decade until last year, when law enforcement and a new crime intervention team focused resources on the “Iron Triangle,” section of the city, helping reduce homicide totals citywide,…
The Richmond Police Department on Thursday released the 911 call that helped end a reported two-hour rape of a Richmond High student outside of her homecoming dance Oct. 24. Richmond resident Margarita Vargas made the call just before midnight that night. Police today also corrected the victim’s age as being 16 instead of 15, as previously reported. At Wednesday night’s district board meeting, Superintendent Bruce Harter said the school has recieved 322 cards and $15,317 in donations for the victim….
Policy should be based on best practices and research, not the turmoil that follows sexual assaults.
More than 300 people turned out at Richmond High School in a show of solidarity for the victim of an alleged rape on campus last week. Students, parents and teachers organized dozens of performances in an attempt to begin healing.
Police Chief Chris Magnus told the Richmond City Council Tuesday that the investigation into the alleged rape of a 15-year-old Richmond High School girl continues, leaving the door open to more arrests.
Sojourner Truth Presbyterian Church contemplates the role of churches and the community in the aftermath of last week’s rape.