Local News & Views

Lovelle Mixon - the suspected shooter behind the deaths of four Oakland police officers on Saturday - has joined the pantheon of Black men who have conducted deadly rebellions: Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Huey Newton, Jonathan Jackson and Larry Davis.

On March 21, Lovelle Mixon, 26, was murdered by Oakland police after allegedly killing four of them on MacArthur Blvd off of 73rd Avenue in East Oakland. Listen to JR's Block Report interview with his family - his mother, Athena, his wife, Amara, and her sister, Alicia - broadcast March 30 on KPFA's Flashpoints at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49609.

When the full story is finally told and, though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in memory of Lovelle Mixon.

Early New Year's morning phones in Hayward and Oakland were ringing: "Wake up, wake up. Something's happened to the boys." Calls were going back and forth between the families of 22-year-old Oscar Grant and his friends - families so close all the women were called "aunties."

In October 2007, the Justice Department reported that during the three years from 2003 through 2005 police in the U.S. killed, on average, a person every day.

James Bryant, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute's San Francisco chapter and chairperson of SEIU Local 1021's political action committee, is the subject of a Los Angeles Times investigation into corruption, largely for taking funds from PG&E and Lennar.

Residents of affordable housing developments live in fear that renovation schemes will end up displacing them. To stop a new threat of displacement in Oakland, pack the CEDA meeting Tuesday, March 10, 2-4:30, Oakland City Hall Hearing Room 1, first floor.

On Feb. 19, hundreds of people who have been attending town hall meetings in nine cities in and around the Bay Area - motivated by the BART police execution of Oscar Grant III and other critical threats to our communities - made the first of many Caravan for Justice trips to Sacramento.

The California Universal Health Care Organizing Project wants President Obama to support congressional legislation authored by Rep. John Conyers that will stop the private health care insurance industry from denying claims, neglecting the sick and wasting 31 cents of every health care dollar.

'Since the police murder of Oscar Grant, there has been an awakening of the sleeping giant, the social consciousness of the people,' writes Minister of Information JR. Call DA Tom Orloff, (510) 272-6222, to demand the charges be dropped against JR Valrey and all protesters. Stay tuned for more on the war against police terrorism in Oakland, birthplace of the Black Panther Party.

No Justice No BART announced that on Thursday, March 5, we will shut down the Fruitvale BART Station during the evening rush hours as part of a campaign of protest actions targeting BART in order to advance community demands in the wake of the police murder of Oscar Grant.

For years the WCCUSD has been bitterly embattled in a monetary fight. This has resulted in a never-ending cry from students and families begging for schools to stay open in their communities.

As city departments cut vital health and tenant protection programs, one might conclude that the obvious targets for cost savings have already been hit. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

"Those policies of either marginalizing or outright demonizing of the city's dark-skinned youth lie buried under Oakland like so many kegs of explosive, primed to blow," writes J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. Hear audios from the last Town Bizness Townhall. PACK COURTROOM 112 MONDAY, Feb. 23, 9am, 661 Washington, Oakland, to support POCC Minister of Information JR, liberation journalist charged with a bogus felony in the Oakland Rebellions.

While charges have been dropped for many of those arrested in recent Oakland protests over the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office is moving forward with six or seven cases, at least three of them felonies.

Despite the city's considerable wealth, our local economy is suffering. Ten thousand more San Franciscans are unemployed than a year ago, 1,000 families have lost their homes to foreclosure and more people are waiting in lines for free food than anyone has seen in a generation.

In March 2008, the Jewish Community Federation arranged San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's all-expense paid junket to Israel, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.

Imagine this: If the roles were reversed, that is, if bystanders had footage of Grant shooting Mehserle, would the media be suggesting a defense for him? Would Grant have been free to roam, to leave the state a week later? Would he have made bail?

"He was making plans to live, not to die." The mother of Gregory Johnson Jr., 20, questions the suicide theory posed by law enforcement officials, remembering her son as a positive, cheerful young man.

The place was the historic Black Dot Café in West Oakland; the event, a "Town Bizness" town hall meeting hosted by the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) with the presence of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr.