OAKLAND POLICE, COMMUNITY WORK TO STEM RISING VIOLENCE

On a recent drizzly December evening, a few dozen people gathered at
Oakland City Hall to remember victims of homicide.

Grieving relatives and affected neighbors listened pensively to speeches
intended to inspire hope. Detectives told mourners to hold fast; new police
strategies are helping solve old crimes.

The mourners cried silently as Lorrain Taylor, a mother of two slain sons,
sang a song calling on everyone to take a stand against gun violence.
Finally, the people formed a line and, with cracked voices, spoke the name
of their departed and in their honor hung colorful origami birds on a silk
tree.

The ceremony, called An Evening of Remembrance, was designed to uplift a
community ravaged by violence and preoccupied with body counts that are
numbing.

In 2002 -- after a period where crime was on the decline -- 113 people were
slain in Oakland, up from 87 in 2001. In 2003, there were 114, after two
people were killed Tuesday -- one in the afternoon and one that night --
surpassing last year's mark.

Reflecting on the recent ceremony, Deputy Police Chief Michael Holland
acknowledged it's hard to face a group of heartbroken parents and proclaim
``we're making progress,'' especially because arrests have been made in
fewer than 50 percent of the cases.

``We have a pretty good idea of who committed some of the homicides in that
room that night,'' said Holland, a lifelong Oakland resident and veteran
detective, ``but we don't have any evidence, witnesses, nothing. Homicides
are tough.''

True enough, behind the hollow smiles and forced diplomacy that night,
resentment festered in the room.

``If Oakland was a white city, if these were white people killing each
other, something would be done to stop this violence,'' one
mother-turned-activist said to a TV news reporter.

Holland, who keeps a photo on his desk of 18-year-old Khadafy Washington, a
young man he mentored who was killed Aug. 4, 2000, said police are doing
the best they can with limited resources. Recently, the department
implemented a new strategy to concentrate virtually all police work --
including outside help on traffic enforcement from the California Highway
Patrol -- on drugs.

``Knowing that a lot of our violence is related to drugs,'' Holland said,
``we're focusing on drug dealers and putting a lot of pressure on them.''

The effort -- Project SAFE (Supplemental and Focused Enforcement) -- seems
to have had some effect since its October launch. In September, Oakland was
14 homicides ahead of last year.

But since Oct. 1, there have been 18 homicides in Oakland, compared with 41
from the previous quarter and 28 from the same quarter in 2002. There was a
stretch in November that saw 18 consecutive days with no killings, a
remarkable turnaround considering that in the two previous months there had
been weeks with as many as five homicides.

``We're really encouraged by the program's success so far,'' Oakland police
Sgt. Peter Sarna said earlier in the week. ``The reductions are still
holding strong. We've just got to try to carry this into next year.''

Oakland is not alone in fighting an increase in violent crime. A slumping
economy, increasing rates of felons getting out of prison and a boom in
youth ages 15 to 25 -- prime years for criminal activity -- all contribute
to a recent spike in crime in cities nationwide, said Jack Riley of the
Rand Corp., a private non-profit public policy research company in Santa
Monica.

``In many communities across the country, starting in 2000 and 2001 we
started seeing reverses in the trends,'' Riley said.

In addition to the recent emphasis on drugs, police, government officials
and community leaders in Oakland are tackling crime from various perspectives.

Two years ago, the police department used grant money to launch a Cold Case
DNA program. The department is looking at more than 500 cases dating back
20 years and has 50 hits that could lead to arrests and, hopefully,
convictions.

Mayor Jerry Brown, meanwhile, has made parole reform his single-minded
mission. Felons are involved in most violent crimes -- either as victims or
perpetrators -- so Brown wants to give local authorities the power to crack
down on the most worrisome parolees.

But others question whether punitive measures alone will stem crime in a
city where a mix of poverty, drug use, youth gangs and distrust of police
boils above the surface.

``The drugs and gangs are the genesis of the murders, but there is
something to do with that other than call in police,'' said Frank A. Jones,
publisher of the Web-based Gibbs Magazine, which features frequent analysis
of Brown's job -- all of it critical.

Others agree that policing alone won't solve Oakland's problems.

``People have always looked to police to solve the issue,'' said Larry
Cohen, executive director of Prevention Institute in Oakland. The agency is
acting as consultant on an Alameda County project to develop a violence
prevention strategy that addresses crime as a public health crisis by
bringing together social services, law enforcement, schools and grass-roots
groups to work on the problem.

``The root of the problem is more spiritual than physical,'' said Lorrain
Taylor of Hayward, whose twin sons, Albade and Obadiah, were shot to death
in February 2000.

At the church-run Men of Valor Academy in East Oakland, former inmates are
getting a chance for a better outcome. The program was started two years
ago with a $500,000 grant from former Gov. Gray Davis and serves men being
released from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. The goal is to keep them from
going back by teaching them skills in the construction trade.

``It's the only business that will not discriminate against you if you have
a prison record,'' said Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church
that runs the academy.

``These young men who were society's throw-away and rejects are now well on
their way to becoming productive citizens,'' Jackson said, predicting that
soon Oakland will see ``an African-American community completely turned
around.''