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About 60 people marched and rallied in Oakland on Wednesday to condemn the police and honor Lovelle Mixon, who was killed by Oakland police after he fatally shot four officers Saturday.

Nearly 500 people gathered at an East Oakland church Tuesday to say goodbye to Lovelle Mixon, the 26-year-old parolee who was killed by police after he went on a shooting rampage that left four Oakland officers dead. The open-casket service, held at Fuller Funerals on International Boulevard, was about an hour long and had such a large turnout that a number of guests were forced to stand. Singers sang. Poets read, and speakers remembered Mixon as an intense and animated storyteller, for his big smile, love of boxing and football and what they called a long and loving relationship with...

“He’s nice, he’s kind, he’s sweet . . .” So said Enjoli Mixon of her brother Lovelle, the killer of four Oakland police officers. “We’re all shocked by this,” she told reporters. She shouldn’t be. Nor should anyone who knew Lovelle Mixon be at all surprised that he met his violent end on March 21. As is often the case in such violent crimes, many have called the murders “senseless.” They were actually anything but senseless. Indeed, but for the scale of the carnage Mixon inflicted before he died, it was an utterly predictable culmination to an utterly misspent life....

One video is worth a thousand words: I mean, if you're not going to celebrate a man who murdered four police officers after hauling a 12 year old girl off the street at gunpoint and raping her (reportedly along with several other girls according to law enforcement), who are you going to celebrate? The San Francisco Chronicle had part of the story: Dozens march for Mixon, against police Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer "OPD you can't hide - we charge you with genocide," chanted the demonstrators as they marched along MacArthur Boulevard, near the intersection with 74th Avenue where Mixon,...

In 1994, Sen. Dianne Feinstein used the tragedy of San Francisco's 101 California massacre to push a decadelong ban on assault weapons through Congress. But even the horror of Saturday's slayings of four Oakland police officers is unlikely to break through the bipartisan opposition that blocked the renewal of that ban in 2004. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and dozens of House Democrats have said they oppose efforts to bring back the national ban, either because the timing is wrong or because they oppose gun control. Pelosi said she hasn't even discussed the...

A week after four Oakland police officers were gunned down by a parolee with a semiautomatic weapon, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Jack Weiss on Friday called for the federal government to reinstate a ban on assault weapons. Before heading to the Bay Area this morning for the funerals of Oakland police Sgt. Mark Dunakin, Sgt. Ervin Romans, Sgt. Daniel Sakai and Officer John Hege, the mayor and councilman called for the renewal of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which prevented the sale of most semiautomatic weapons. "This morning we are calling on Congress and the Obama administration to...

Dozens of loved ones and supporters gathered for the evening march, organized by International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, that took participants to a police substation within sight of the two locations where Lovelle Mixon allegedly shot the veteran officers. Mixon, 26, also was killed in the confrontation. "I don't condone what he did, but it's bringing to light the frustrations between the community and the police," said Uhuru Movement member Kihad Deen. "This gives people a chance to speak their minds." As mourners walked through the streets, they chanted, "OPD you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" There were...

We talked yesterday about the utter uselessness of "gun control" in preventing a killer's shooting rampage. We further broke down how the media presented misinformation about guns. Here's more, presented as straight news: Mixon, who police believe was hiding in a closet in a back bedroom, began firing through the door and wall with a military assault rifle, sources said. Not unless it was designed to be capable of fully automatic fire he didn't. And then we have Chip Johnson of The San Francisco Chronicle, typifying the type of blood dance that always accompanies calls to disarm you and me:...

Oakland -- About 60 people marched and rallied in Oakland tonight to condemn the police and honor Lovelle Mixon, who was killed by Oakland police after he fatally shot four officers Saturday. "OPD you can't hide - we charge you with genocide," chanted the demonstrators as they marched along MacArthur Blvd., near the intersection with 74th Avenue where Mixon, 26, a fugitive parolee, gunned down two motorcycle officers who had pulled him over in a traffic stop. He then killed two more officers who had tried to capture him where he was hiding in sister's apartment nearby. The protest was...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- While Lovell Shawn Mixon may not have been well known to even those who lived in his Oakland neighborhood, his violent lifestyle had long ago placed him on law enforcement’s radar screen, according to court documents. KTVU has obtained the court file of the man who allegedly killed for Oakland police officers last weekend – two of them execution style. The file is nearly an inch thick and reveals a life turned violent beginning at the age of 13 and ending in a gun battle with SWAT officers at 26. Raised by his mother in Atlanta until...

Oakland shooter unable to escape cycle of violence By JULIANA BARBASSA – 2 hours ago OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Lovelle Mixon died at 26, hiding in an apartment, shot by police during a gun fight that left four officers dead and stunned a city already plagued by violence. Court records show a lifetime of wrong turns spent largely behind bars. Family members, angry and upset after their loss, describe Mixon as an deeply frustrated young man who likely snapped under the weight of opportunities missed or denied.

SAN FRANCISCO – The parolee who killed three Oakland police officers and left a fourth brain-dead over the weekend had been tentatively linked by DNA evidence to a rape the day before the shootings, authorities said. Oakland police spokesman Jeff Thomason confirmed a report on the San Francisco Chronicle's Web site on Monday night that DNA from an unsolved rape in Oakland in February was a probable match to that of 26-year-old Lovelle Mixon. Investigators got that information Friday, the day before Mixon opened fire on the officers following a routine traffic stop. Mixon is the primary suspect in the...

See, that's the thing. Being a "prohibited person," it was illegal for Mixon to touch any gun. It was illegal for him to have a handgun, to carry it, to kill with it. And California has "assault weapon" bans that cover not only the model Mixon used, but also the characteristics. And then there's this: The bulletproof vests that Romans and Sakai wore were no help - when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head. The reporters (I like to call them "Authorized Journalists") managed to convey...

If history repeats itself, the fatal shootings of four Oakland police officers on Saturday afternoon will become the next benchmark in the national debate on a federal law to ban assault weapons. If there is a grain of hope to be gathered from a loss so tragic, it's that last weekend's horrific events will help end the debate on an unresolved policy issue that has resulted in thousands of deaths and helped sustain veritable demilitarized zones in some of our nation's largest cities. In Oakland, a city already struggling with high crime and gun violence, the deaths of two officers...

<p>A police officer was battling for his life and three more were dead after a parolee with an "extensive criminal history" opened fire at a routine traffic stop and hours later gunned down members of a SWAT team searching for him.</p>

OAKLAND -- Four Oakland police officers were shot and seriously wounded this afternoon after a car stop went bad, police sources reported. Two of the officers were gunned down outside their patrol car after they pulled over a car in the 7400 block of MacArthur Boulevard, not far from the Eastmont Town Center. Another officer reported was shot while in pursuit of the suspect. It was not clear where the fourth officer was shot. A suspect was later reported to also have been shot.

<p>The man, a 27-year-old Oakland resident, was later fatally shot in a gun battle with SWAT officers in a nearby apartment complex where he hid.</p> <p>A fourth officer -- also shot -- remained in critical condition, police said at a late-night news conference.</p>

Four Oakland police officers die after shootings, city attorney says Dan Rosenstrauch / Associated Press Law enforcement officers find cover behind a car on 73rd Avenue in Oakland while responding to the second officer involved shooting in Oakland of the day. The police department has yet to confirm their deaths, but a spokesman says details will be released at a news conference tonight. The suspect also was killed in this afternoon's shootings. By Maria L. LaGanga and Cara Mia DiMassa March 22, 2009 Reporting from Los Angeles and Oakland -- In a blow to the Oakland Police Department, four officers...

(03-21) 22:55 PDT OAKLAND -- Three Oakland police sergeants were shot and killed and a fourth officer was critically wounded Saturday in a pair of related incidents that together rank among the deadliest attacks on law enforcement in California history. A fifth officer, a member of the SWAT team that killed the suspect police held responsible for the shootings, was treated for minor injuries and released. The first incident happened about 1:15 p.m. when two traffic officers were gunned down after what police described as a "routine" stop of a 1995 Buick in the 7400 block of MacArthur Boulevard in...

4th officer brain dead after shooting in Oakland Violence began when a parolee opened fire at a traffic stop Tony Avelar / AP March 22, 2009 OAKLAND, Calif. - An Oakland police officer shot during a traffic stop was declared brain dead on Sunday and on life support, a day after three other officers were fatally shot in what was being described as the deadliest day in the department's history, police said. Officer John Hege, 41, was being kept alive on life support at Highland Hospital after being gravely wounded in the first of two shootings on Saturday, Oakland police...