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The Cinco de Mayo celebration on the 23rd Street corridor has become one of Richmond’s grandest events But it wasn’t always that way. Ten years ago, the street and the holiday became synonymous with an incident that would become a turning point in the city’s history, ushering in a new generation of political leaders and a renewed commitment to citizen oversight of the police department. Those were the themes explored at “2002 5 De Mayo Richmond Police Riot: What Really…
North Richmond is a unique Bay Area community poised for growth and investment in the coming years. But it’s also saddled with a history of decades of poverty and violence, and a jaded outlook toward political leaders and outside forces. How well the tiny community of about 4,000 residents can reconcile those clashing realities could determine the future, according to a report produced by UC Berkeley graduate students. “This is part of a process of building institutional linkages between this…
Thousands packed the 23rd Street commercial district on Sunday to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Richmond teamed up with the city of San Pablo for two days of festivities.
The golden shovels were out, but this wasn’t a “groundbreaking” ceremony. It was a ground “filling” one. City leaders and state and county officials were joined by more than 100 people Friday to mark the start of the final phase of a project to repair a massive sinkhole that swallowed cars and blocked access to a residential community more than two years ago near Via Verdi Road off I-80. The Via Verdi repair project began April 15, 2010, when heavy…
A divided City Council halted a grant-funded port security construction project Tuesday, opting to put plans for the site on hold while exploring the feasibility of a nearby location. The move delays a nearly $4 million project to build a security and operations center for first responders at 1411 Harbour Way South, the Richmond Port’s current main office. Councilman Tom Butt lobbied for more than a month, first to initiate a $40,000 engineering assessment of Riggers Loft, and now to…
The jury has the case. What then-16-year-old Tyris Franklin was thinking when he shot another teen four times is what they have to decide. Closing arguments concluded the trial proceedings Tuesday in the case against Franklin, now 17, accused of first-degree murder in the Jan. 10, 2011 killing of El Cerrito High School student athlete Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell, 16. Deputy District Attorney Barry Grove painted a picture of Richmond neighborhoods plagued by territorial rivalries and senseless violence, a milieu in…
For Tyris Franklin, the rest of his life could depend on what was going through his 16-year-old mind when he shot Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell four times, killing the unarmed student-athlete. “I don’t remember what happened,” Franklin said Thursday, testifying on his own behalf. “Things just boiled up and boiled up to where I had no choice … I don’t know, I just snapped and things happened.” Franklin, now 17, is on trial, accused of first-degree murder in the killing of…
Chevron Corp. invested $1 million in seven nonprofits focused on improving science and math education and enhancing economic development in Richmond. On Wednesday, about more than 100 people came to the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts to hear leaders from the seven organizations report on what they accomplished with the money over the last year. Leaders from each group presented short videos highlighting what they did with the money and provided statistics demonstrating everything from improved high school…
For Gene Deshawn Grisby-Bell, a toxic mixture of neighborhood feuds, searing juvenile emotions, a small-caliber handgun and bad luck led to the end of his promising young life on a January afternoon in 2011. Grisby-Bell, a 16-year-old El Cerrito High School student and football player, was walking from his grandmother’s Crescent Park apartment when a white sedan packed with five teenagers stopped in the street. According to both the prosecution and defense in a murder trial that started Monday in…