Powell was shot in the head at about 12:30 a.m. after handing William Holloway a hot dinner of fish and chips from his family’s van on the 1000 block of 47th Avenue. Bullets struck Powell’s 3-year-old stepdaughter in the arm and grazed his wife’s shoulder. Powell’s 7-year-old stepdaughter was also in the van but was not hurt.
What a craphole of a city. I always laugh when people tell me they are moving to Oakland because they “got a good deal.”
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Actually, John, we in the television news refer to Oakland as a SHIT-hole of a city.
There is only one reason why Oakland is such a craptown. It is the low level of intelligence and civility of the people living there. I could go on and on, but the problem lies in the fact that it is politically incorrect to refer to the low-level sub humans living there. Many, many of the people in these communities are fine people, but they tolerate the savages amongst themselves, have a youth culture that looks up to hoodlumism as a lifestyle, and the whole city has to live with their own culture.
Oaktown has been a cesspool for decades as far as I’m aware. I cannot ever remember a time when a person would be happy about moving to Oakland (unless they had never been there). The only reason they can fill Alameda stadium is that there is a direct walkway from the BART to the stadium. If people had to actually walk or drive through Oakland, neither the A’s nor the Raiders would ever get a sell-out (not that they do now but the odds are higher).
OK, added Okland to list of places I have no need to visit.
Go ebonics.
What a craphole of a state.
Let it flush into the Pacific.
Seems like there is more to this story unless it was just a knee grow gangsta that was robbing him.
Maybe we should just wall off Oakland and turn it into a high security open-range prison like the movie “Escape from New York”. Escape from Oakland… I like the sound of it.
And the mayor of that city convinced CA population to vote him Governor … That is where the guilt lies (voters).
Having lived in both California and New Jersey, and driven through the respective cities several times, I claim Oakland CA is the Camden NJ of California.
Also, California is the New Jersey of the Pacific.
I feel better now.
I’m with #7-Steve S, Oakland is a fracking war zone! The only place where ordering at a KFC involves an intercom, bullet proof glass, and a sliding/locking drawer. Made that mistake coming home and having to land at the Oakland airport and not eating before I left. At least my buddy and I had just come back from a shooting competition and were armed.
Add the Bart police to those stupid people
I stayed in Oakland for a week (I was at a conference in ’91 for Computer Language Magazine and AI Expert.) There were still digging out from the ’89 Loma Prieta Earthquake.
It was depressing as hell, but the hotel rooms were cheap.
Feeding the homeless at 12:30 a.m., with 2 children and a pregnant woman in the car, in Oakland?
#13 My thoughts exactly. WTF?
I visit Oakland and have never had an issue. I think most of their crime comes from the surrounding area because during the day it’s a great place (I’ve bumped into Dirty Harry twice when walking around the city business park). It’s a great place and right between Berkeley and San Francisco, the other two greatest cities in the world after Sacramento.
My best friends house is just below the picture taken there. No finer living than the Oakland/Berkley hills. Leaving your own house is always a burden. Crowded for sure.
Downtown/AM is dangerous all across America. Increasing wealth divide, tv touting avarice, and guns: not a good mix.
It is not just Cal.every state is like this.A guy went for a jog here in Vegas at 7pm they found him dead on the street in a so called nice area.When you spend little to no money on education,sell guns to everybody 24/7 because it is your right, what do you expect.And guess what it is not getting better!!
For confused foreigners, Oakland is a city province in middle central California. High levels of homelessness, unemployment and violent crime have wrecked the once prosperous community. Areas nearby Oakland, are suffering a net outfux of Oaklanders, economic refugees from said conditions. Policing, law enforcement, educational institutions, schools, libraries and public facilities in the Oakland area have fallen in standard or have disappeared due to a general failure of the state and of the local economies.
Oh yay! this is that Cali filth that just keeps pourin into our beautiful Texas.
#16. who knew, this is caused by the increasing wealth divide!
#16, I guess you blamed everyone except the party that has been running Oakland for the last 40 years. Nope they have not caused any of their own problems, just like Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, ect.
Mickey–I noted 3 things, not just one. There are more of course, but why bother when you can’t deal with more than one? Haw, haw!!!
Bob–only a partisan hack takes a social issue and turns it into a political one solely so that they can falsely blame one side as opposed to the other.
Bob…..how does it feel to be even more stupid than Mickey?
You people crack me up. If you have ever lived or visited some really crappy cities on the east coast, you would know that Oakland isn’t nearly as bad. I was scared shitless driving through Camden, NJ one day–in broad daylight!! And living in Philadelphia for over 8 years showed me what a real shithole looks like and feels like. 12 inch bullet proof glass is a common site at every single store, bank, and fast food place. Row upon row of fire-bombed houses is a common site. I had to remove drunks, crack addicts, and bags of human feces from our front door–and this was in a decent neighborhood.
I lived in Oakland for about 6 months upon returning to California. It is a piece of cake after my 8 years of “east coast city living.”
oven–so right you are. I was driving thru South Philly one bright summer day and thought I was on a post Apocalypse movie set. It was worse than South Baltimore. If I had gotten a flat tire, I think I would have kept going.
Ha, ha. Took the subway to South Chicago to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum. End of the line for a half mile walk. The japanese tourists behind me refused to get off the train preferring to get arrested rather than wait for a return subway.
What is it about the South?
San Diego was like this a few years back but the city did a fantastic job in cleaning up downtown, the homeless and instituting laws. The homeless problem hasn’t been resolved 100%, it can’t be, but there are more shelters and help available or them.
If you choose to live in a “rougher” neighborhood because you want to help out you are taking a risk, not matter what you might think otherwise. It’s rough because people are in a desperate and hopeless period in their life. You cannot expect the worst to not happen even when you’re trying to help.
Look, I help out at the shelters myself. I’m always careful of my surroundings. Just because you’re helping others doesn’t mean you have to stop. Like I said before you are in a tougher neighborhood so you have to be extra cautious.
I’m feel bad for the lost but things like this does happen, even to good people. I partially blame the city for not having successfully done what my city has done.
Oakland is pretty bad but it is nothing new: it was crime ridden 40 years ago. More like 70 years ago, Gertrude Stein wrote, “There’s no ‘there’ there.”
Still largely true. The crime ridden industrial underbelly of San Francisco.
Well 12:AM in any big city with high crime is just asking for trouble these day’s. Not sure about Oakland because I live near Chicago. But even some of the moderately big cities are seeing more crime problems with the bad economy.
#23 If Oakland is “a piece of cake” because you don’t have to remove bags of shit from your porch, you have really low expectations of your quality of life. I would not ever even have to consider such a disgusting proposition, because I chose to locate myself in a decent neighborhood, and I work hard to support myself so I can. As John D wonders, why would ANYONE live in Oakland when they can just as easily live in another Bay Area city? There are good places to live in this country, and for some reason, you and others continue to live in the cesspool that is Oakland.
I tried to write something here to explain why Oakland is such a rat hole. But I had to keep deleting stuff for one reason.
So I won’t bother.
Oakland is a rotten place. Why is that? I know why. You all take your best guesses.
Gee, as a resident of the largest city and the Seat of the County of Alameda; the eighth largest city in the State of California; home of the NFL’s Raiders professional football team, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors professional basketball team and the MLB’s Athletics professional baseball team; the corporate headquarters of businesses such as Clorox, Kaiser Permanente, Dreyer’s, Cost Plus World Market, Ask.com, and Pandora Radio; the place where the “Posicle” frozen treat, the diamond-shaped roller pantograph used for electric streetcars, the “Rocky Road” ice cream flavor, and the “Mai Tai” alcohol cocktail were each invented; where the United States’ first theme park catering to families with young children was created and still operates as Children’s Fairyland (inspiring the creation of places like Disneyland, as it did for Walt Disney); where the public can visit and use the observatory and interactive displays at the Chabot Space and Science Center; where the only museum devoted to the art, history, culture, and natural environment of California is located and visited daily; where an Accredited Zoo that’s nationally acclaimed for it’s use of the “Protected Contact” animal management style allows elephants to live in a more natural environment, where there are old and new buildings as diverse as the modern architecture of the Roman Catholic Church’s Cathedral of Christ the Light was primarily constructed of glass and steel, to the last remaining commercial building in California with its original gas lighting, Heinhold’s First and Last Chance Saloon is still operating as it did when the future American author known as “Jack London” spent much of his young adulthood, I can certainly understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be out late at night here. There just isn’t anything this city could offer a law-abiding visitor, besides a wayward bullet during a drive-by shooting.