OAKLAND IN THE CROSS FIRE

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods

No Sanctuary

Residents in East, West Oakland Try to Protect Themselves From The Encroaching Wave of Violence

Oakland -- Good thing Michael "Boogie" Pintily is only
5.

If he had been any taller, he could have been killed by a bullet that
whizzed through a metal security door and wooden front door of his
family's East Oakland home last month and lodged in the plaster wall
- - a few inches above his head.

A month ago on the other end of the city, a sidewalk dice game led to
gunshots and a stray bullet crashed through the window of Tess Sweet's
West Oakland loft. She was unhurt, but the experience rattled her and
the other loft-dwellers, who moved there six months ago with hopes of
improving a rough neighborhood.

The two neighborhoods in the city's flatlands have taken the brunt of
Oakland's summer of fear -- in which nearly three people a week have
been murdered across the city, bringing this year's death toll to 71.

Oakland homicide investigators now have 20 more cases than they did
this time last year. Most are believed to be related to drug dealing,
80 percent of the victims are African American, and most are unsolved
as fearful witnesses stay silent.

Mayors nationwide are grappling with a similar spike in crime, and in
Oakland, Mayor Jerry Brown is responding with a call for 100 more
cops. Six thousand residents marched through city streets last month
pleading for peace and jobs.

While much of the rest of Oakland prospers, Boogie's impoverished
neighborhood has seen little of the economic boom. Sweet's is an area
in transition, where the real estate boom has brought newcomers who
saw potential,

at low prices, in charming but neglected Victorians and derelict
warehouses transformed into lofts.

But many of the people living in both places share a common resolve:
to stay in the place they call home. To do otherwise would be to give
in to the violence.

"I've got pit bulls, crack dealers and drunks across the street, and
40 kids who live here," said dressmaker Dianne Hutchings, who moved to
the West Oakland loft from Nob Hill. "But I am not moving. It's up to
us to make this area better. We have our work cut out for us."

West Oakland

Once an abandoned rubber factory, the red-brick Adeline Lofts boasts
soaring windows, granite countertops and cement floors warmed by
radiant heat. Next door, a troubled housing project was torn down and
new affordable housing is being built.

But two liquor stores -- one on each corner -- attract trouble, and
even the kids know the boarded-up home down the block is a crack house.

While it looks like another sign of gentrification, Adeline Lofts
actually was built in response to it. Developer Affordable Housing
Associates targeted Oakland residents, particularly artists, and a
family of four must earn less than $35,000 a year to qualify for one
of the 38 rentals.

"Society's track record has been that to improve a neighborhood, you
get rid of the poor people," said Hyland Baron, arts community
developer for the project. "We don't believe that's the way to do it."

Keeping the Pressure On

For Hutchings, 42, who sews bridesmaid dresses and speaks with a
Tennessee twang, it means sweeping the sidewalks, calling the police
and circulating petitions to curtail liquor store hours.

"I am worried, but it's not going to stop me," she said. "These kids
deserve a better chance."

Sweet, a 30-year-old painter and aspiring videographer with spiky
blonde hair and tattooed arms, has planted snapdragons and petunias
outside her door and invited longtime neighborhood residents to check
out her spacious loft -- "by far the best living situation I've ever
had," she said.

Even last month's stray bullet -- which tore through a cheery
watercolor painting of bright pink daisies before lodging in the wall
at heart level -- has not convinced her to leave. But she insists on
parking just outside her door. And while she loves the light that
floods the loft, the huge windows make her feel vulnerable.

"It's inevitable the police aren't the ones who are going to make
things better," she said. "It's got to be grassroots."

Dee Triche, 46, who helps manage the lofts, looks out her corner
window at the prostitutes and teenage drug dealers on bikes.

"Day or night, it doesn't matter," she said.

Before rising rents drove her from a Lake Merritt apartment, she rode
her bike and took walks at night. Now, she loads the bike on her car
and drives out of town.

She quietly supports Hutchings' efforts, but does not want to be out
front, fearing retaliation.

"You could see how the area was changing. You see beautiful houses,
then slums," said Triche. "My hope was that it would change faster."

Keeping an Eye on Children

Josette Golatt, a fashion designer, has set strict rules for her five
children, ages 3 to 13.

"If they can't play right here" in front of the loft, "they can't play
at all," said the eldest, JerSean, who is learning to distinguish the
sound of gunfire from fireworks. "But you know kids have to go around
the corner."

His parents relented and let him walk to middle school last year,
despite their worries.

"We just pray and believe God will protect him when we're giving him
the space," said his father, Willie Golatt, over the screech of tires
as cars raced by at dusk.

Golatt counts the days until the family can save enough to buy a house
with a yard where his children would have the freedom to be children.

But Josette Golatt would be just as happy seeing the neighborhood
improve. She wants to set up a fashion academy for inner-city kids, so
there would be something to get into besides trouble.

"I've got to have hope," she said. "I brought five children
here."

East Oakland

Boogie lives on the corner of 84th Avenue and Dowling Street in East
Oakland, where three people have been gunned down this summer --
making it one of Oakland's deadliest.

Marijuana is the main commodity, police say, on a corner that's become
a trouble spot as older parolees return to find their turf taken over
by a younger generation of sellers unwilling to cede ground.

At the same time, 84th and Dowling is a place where mothers are trying
to raise their children, seniors are trying to live out their
retirement years, and new immigrants are spending more than $1,000 a
month in rent trying to find the American dream.

It's a place where thousands of parishioners formed a human cross at
the intersection in mid-July to condemn the murders.

Neighbors cope in their own ways. Boogie's mother Alice Jackson sends
her six children to the safety of Castlemont High's indoor swimming
pool every day,

but that doesn't quell her stress-induced ulcers.

Cleophis Jermany, 79, has resorted to vigilantism, and fired back at
the dealers who run through his yard, landing himself two trips to
jail. A new Latina neighbor too afraid to give her name waters her
roses behind a 10-foot chain-link fence with her rottweiler by her
side. Edward Moore, an 18-year resident, has told his grandchildren
they can't visit anymore.

"They asked if they could give my grandson a few dollars to be a
lookout, and yell '5-0' when he spotted a police car," said the self-
employed key maker.

Now he drives to different cities to see his babies. It's a price he
has to pay for peaceful coexistence, he said.

"Calling the police would be my worst move," he said. "That would mean
I had lost my ability to communicate with people. When it gets too
much, I just ask them to give me my space. They respect me, and move
down for a bit."

Looking for a Second Chance

Most of the young black men who are selling are parolees who need
second chances to get legitimate jobs, said 26-year-old convict Melvin
Cleveland, who was hanging around the corner visiting friends one
weekday morning.

"Me and some friends robbed some people when we were teenagers,"
Cleveland said. "It was stupid, and I accept responsibility for my
actions, but now I've lost three different jobs after my bosses found
out I had a record. How can people go legit if no one wants them?"

Father Jay Matthews, of the neighborhood St. Benedict's Catholic
Church, has heard it all before.

"Excuses," he said. "This community is filled with pastors who offer
dozens of job programs for ex-offenders. If you are serious about
wanting a second chance you have to do some of the work yourself, by
not putting yourself in places and situations that are dangerous."

Alice Jackson says the pool is the safest place within walking
distance for her children. At night, the whole clan crowds into the
back bedroom to watch TV, away from the street.

"I try to be careful, but I can't watch them 24 hours a day," she
said.

The neighborhood has quieted down with increased police patrols in
recent weeks, she said, but she worries how long the stalemate will
last before the bullets come back.

Looking for Protection

Jermany, who bought his Dowling Street home 34 years ago, recently
installed a $300 emergency call system near his front door. Police
urged him to get the one-touch 911 system after he was arrested twice
for firing at "trespassers" in his yard, he said.

"They told me that I have to keep my gun concealed," said Jermany, an
Arkansas native who grew up with guns. "Well, what good's a gun if
it's hidden?"

Since his scrapes with the law, Jermany says he's switched to a
different sort of protection, the kind afforded by the Lord above. He
spends hours each day at the dining room table poring over leather-
bound copies of the Scripture.

"He's been protecting me for 79 years. No doubt if he's been
protecting me that long, I don't have to worry about this
neighborhood," he said.

Boogie sports a reminder of his close call last month: a scar on his
hand, where a splinter of wood, broken from the door when the bullet
passed through, jabbed into his skin.

"See?" he said, tracing the line.

"My daddy pulled the wood out of my hand."