West Oakland

Went on a run in West Oakland, the bulging rectangle bordered by the yellow highways in the image above, and ran into a couple of neighbors. I live in West Oakland's dead center, the Ralph Bunche micro-neighborhood. Our subsection of that is bordered by 18th St. on the south, West Grand Ave. on the north, Adeline Ave. on the west and Market St. on the east.

Last week, just outside my place, there was an AK-57 shootout. My neighbor said it sounded like firecrackers and didn't take it seriously, but he did when he stepped outside and saw the car with blown-out windows on his street corner. Another neighbor had a bullet land just below her kitchen window. There's a Ford Fairlane, one of Linden Street's (my street) hallmark cars, now with a bullet hole in the windshield. Two weeks before this, my neighbor, a dude in the know, said, his neighbor behind him was murdered at 18th St. and Linden St. Didn't even know about that. The cops do their work and get out - no big deal here. A couple of months ago there was a murder just two blocks north at West Grand Ave. and Linden St., one that I semi-witnessed.

The in-the-know neighbor, who spends all day, most everyday, outside on the corner selling bootleg CDs and DVDs and random food items, says the hood is going bad, obviously. He's the one that outlined the micro-neighborhood, delineated above, as the bad area. "In all the time that I've lived here, it's never been this bad." Didn't ask him how long he's lived here, but I think a while. I told him to be careful. And he said, "Don't worry about me, I have my self protected." Let me just say - NOTED.

Mas luego. Am planning on going to the Oakland Police Department and getting all the recent activity in my neighborhood. Not that that's the tell all, but I'm willing to guess that crime's showing a marked ramp-up in the last few months.

On another note, here's a pretty New Year's photo: