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The FBI has joined Oakland officials in examining a city-funded teen center, asking two construction firms why city Redevelopment Agency officials sought bids from them for a 2010 renovation of the center that had already been completed, representatives of the companies said Friday.The Digital Arts and Culinary Academy, offering free classes in cooking, agriculture and multimedia production, has been run by aides to Councilwoman Desley Brooks since it opened in her East Oakland district last summer. It was renovated in spring 2010 without a contract or City Council approval.Brooks has been trying to get Oakland to pay prime contractor Pulte...

State of the City speeches tend to be long on optimism. No mayor stands up before a crowded council chamber and says that his city is going to the dogs -- even if it's the truth. Yet Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's speech Wednesday took the glass is half-full approach to new levels. When it was over, I wondered if we lived in the same city. "Oakland is on the rise," she proclaimed. "It's been a pretty good year, except for a few bumps." Excuse me? A few bumps? From August through December, three children -- ages 3, 23 months and...

In a small park in Oakland's Uptown neighborhood, hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters were surrounded by police officers in riot helmets just before 6 p.m. Jan. 28.A resident started filming the standoff from his fourth-story apartment as officers appeared to direct protesters to opposite sides of the park, only to block their way out.Minutes later, police set off a flash grenade and released a chemical agent. The fleeing protesters barreled over a chain-link fence and spilled onto Telegraph Avenue, where they continued on.The marchers had just escaped being "kettled" - a confinement tactic that civil rights attorneys and use-of-force experts...

The Occupy movement isn't the only Oakland organization without leadership. Anyone catch the Oakland City Council in action earlier this week? The council failed to pass a resolution calling on police to enforce all available laws to prevent another shutdown of the Port of Oakland or another violent demonstration. The seaport terminal has been shut down twice by Occupy Oakland protests since November. Council members Ignacio de la Fuente, Libby Schaaf, Jane Brunner and Desley Brooks voted in favor of the resolution, which also would have required Occupy protesters to obtain permits for their marches and rallies. But it did...

After a year of nearly non-stop crises, Mayor Jean Quan sought today to portray Oakland as "a resilient city" rebounding from the economic and political wreckage. In her first State of the City address, slated for 7 tonight, Quan plans to highlight the city's booming arts, culinary and cultural scenes, anticrime measures and some signs the city might be emerging from the economic morass. She met with some reporters this morning to talk about the city. "Despite all the bumps, this has actually not been a bad year for Oakland," she said. "The improvements are not fast, but they are...

Oakland's City Council, amid a rowdy crowd of protesters, narrowly backed off a resolution Tuesday that would have beefed up law enforcement at Occupy protests. The resolution, which lacked the five votes necessary to pass, would have increased police enforcement of laws against blocking streets and assembling without a permit. The proposal came in the wake of a Jan. 28 protest downtown in which 400 people were arrested. Even as they defeated the resolution, council members expressed anger at the tactics of Occupy Oakland during the meeting, particularly group members' persistent shouting. "I am disgusted with the complete lack of...

Gunfire on the left. Gunfire on the right. And a gaggle of protesters dead ahead shouting: "Police are bastards" and "F- the police." While Occupy Oakland protesters rant on and on about the brutality of the Oakland Police Department, brutality has been occurring all around them. From Thursday to Monday, 15 people were shot in the city in unrelated incidents. And Oakland police weren't responsible for any of those shootings. Five of the people who were shot died. Perhaps Occupy Oakland should plan a march to protest all the violence in our city - including their own. Because in Oakland's...

OAKLAND -- The hacker group Anonymous inserted itself into the feud between the Occupy Oakland movement and the city by releasing the personal information of top city officials this morning. The international cyber-clique gained notoriety last year when it launched a similar move against BART after the agency shut off cell phone service in its tunnels to thwart protesters. It released a statement on its website admonishing the city for its treatment of Occupy demonstrators. This time, they posted a page displaying personal contact information for Mayor Jean Quan and her husband, City Administrator Deanna Santana, police Chief Howard Jordan,...

NOTE The following news release is a quote: www.ice.gov/news/releases/1202/120206denver.htm FEBRUARY 6, 2012 DENVER, CO Chinese national indicted in Colorado for trying to illegally export to China radiation-hardened computer circuits used in satellite communications DENVER – Philip Chaohui He, aka Philip Hope, a Chinese national, made his initial appearance in U.S. district court on Thursday after he was named in a three-count indictment charging him with attempting to export defense articles without U.S. State Department authorization. The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney John Walsh, District of Colorado and Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Denver office of...

A tense face-off between Occupy Oakland activists and members of a new group formed to protest their tactics erupted this afternoon in front of Oakland City Hall, with both sides accusing each other of missing the point of the Occupy movement One young Occupier, who like many declined to give his name, argued with members of the new group that Occupy would have been eliminating blight by taking over an empty convention center. "You are blight, don't you see it?" retorted Aaron Merritt, a 39-year-old graphic designer. The young Occupier shot back: "You're in the matrix. You've been indoctrinated."

In many countries, journalists who investigate political corruption or major crime figures get thrown into prison, gunned down or kidnapped -- never to be heard from again. In the United States, however, few people have been crazy enough or bold enough to assassinate a journalist to stop a story. It has happened twice. In 1976, when Arizona Republic Reporter Don Bolles was mortally wounded in a car bombing in Phoenix. Then, on Aug. 2, 2007, when a brainwashed 19-year-old man with a sawed-off shotgun ambushed journalist Chauncey Bailey as he walked from a McDonald's in downtown Oakland to his newspaper...

The Oakland, Calif., chapter of the US Occupy movement overwhelmingly endorsed a proposal in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. According to Twitter accounts by pro-Palestinian activists pushing the proposal, the statement won nearly unanimous backing in a vote Wednesday following a brief discussion. A lengthy statement on the Occupy Oakland website attacked US aid to Israel and suggested that Israel had "prodded" the United States into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Oakland branch of the Occupy movement, which focuses on what it sees as economic discrepancies in the United States, has become increasingly...

“The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground,” said Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking at a press conference Saturday evening after a day of demonstrations called by Occupy Oakland that saw approximately 400 arrests, multiple injuries and numerous confrontations with police. She ticked off the damage that had been done when a group of protesters broke into City Hall, overturning a scale model of the building, vandalizing a children's art exhibit, and burning an American flag. The next day in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, she returned to her talking point: "It's...

Occupy Oakland is aptly named. When forces occupy a city, they know that occupied turf is not their home. They can maraud, loot, vandalize, abuse the locals, and then leave. They can treat other people's property as their own. The occupiers don't have to clean up after themselves. They don't have to worry about paying for the workers who clean up after them, either. Occupiers don't have to exert self-control. They can freely act upon their rage, while defenders of occupied territory must concentrate on protecting what others want to harm. Occupiers do not have to fear that they will...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said she has had it with a small, violent fringe element within the Occupy Oakland protests and claimed it is using the city as a “playground.” Quan spoke Monday in an interview following another chaotic round of street protests in which police units from surrounding areas were on hand to support the cash-strapped city’s police department.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said today that she is going to call national leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement and implore them to disown Oakland's protest movement. Quan said Saturday's demonstration, where 400 protesters were arrested and City Hall was vandalized, showed that the contingent of protesters who have targeted Oakland were not as non-violent as they claim they are. "I plan to call some of the national leadership of Occupy this week to say that the Oakland group is not nonviolent and has not agreed to be nonviolent," Quan said in an interview on KCBS. "The national Occupy...

A 15-year-old boy has admitted to killing his parents and hiding their bodies underneath blankets in the family's car parked outside their Oakland home, police said Saturday. Police arrested the juvenile, whom this newspaper is not naming because he is a minor, on suspicion of murder after speaking to him earlier in the day. He told investigators he killed Robert Kamin, 54, and Susan Poff, 50 -- a longtime couple who recently moved into the neighborhood -- on Thursday and hid their bodies in the home, a police source said. Police are not releasing the cause of death until a...

Oakland officials and Occupy protesters Sunday confronted the fallout from their continuing conflict, a fight that reignited Saturday with a chaotic, often violent day of demonstrations that resulted in at least 400 arrests. A day after Saturday's clashes, city officials took stock of the damage, which included injuries to three police officers and several protesters, as well as vandalism inside City Hall. There, dozens of protesters had broken in with a crowbar, grabbed California and U.S. flags, and ignited them on the front steps. "It's like a tantrum," Mayor Jean Quan said while displaying the damage inside the building, which...

Arrests in Oakland protests rise to more than 400By Emmett Berg Sun Jan 29, 2012 4:09pm EST OAKLAND, Calif (Reuters) - More than 400 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested in Oakland during a night of skirmishes in which police fired tear gas and bean bag projectiles, the city said on Sunday, marking one of the biggest mass arrests since nationwide economic protests began last year. Earlier on Sunday, authorities had said that the arrest figure was between 200 and 300. But the Oakland emergency operations center said in a statement that revised that up to more than 400, and said...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Oakland officials assessed damage to City Hall caused by Occupy protesters while leaders of the movement claimed Sunday that police acted illegally in arresting hundreds of demonstrators and could face a lawsuit. Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag. That break-in culminated a day of clashes between protesters and police. Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said nearly 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse and vandalism. At least three...

Once again, Oakland is barreling into the pot frontier on its own. Federal officials have forced the shutdown of more than 200 medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California since fall, and the state Supreme Court agreed last week to hear a case that could throw the industry into chaos - but is that discouraging the city of Oaksterdam? Hardly. Oakland officials are planning to issue permits . . .

300 arrested in daylong Occupy Oakland protestsBy TERRY COLLINS/Associated Press Posted: 01/29/2012 05:04:33 AM PST OAKLAND - Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard around City Hall following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests. Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a U.S. flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center. Saturday's protests - the most turbulent since Oakland police forcefully dismantled an Occupy encampment in November - came just days after the group said it planned to use a vacant building as a...

Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters for failing to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences. Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of them entering a YMCA building. Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in.

OAKLAND -- Police have fired tear gas and flash bang grenades at Occupy Oakland protesters as they marched near the Oakland Museum of California. As marchers walked up Oak Street near 12th Street, a line of police blocked the path and declared it an unlawful assembly. Police then fired tear gas and some protesters tweeted rubber bullets were fired into the crowd. The marchers turned around and began marching in the opposite direction, and are headed back to Frank Ogawa Plaza. Occupy protesters had planned to take over a vacant building to house their headquarters and hold a two-day party....

Mayor Jean Quan vowed Wednesday to quickly reform the scandal-plagued Oakland Police Department after a frustrated judge threatened a federal takeover if it fails to quickly make good on changes agreed to nine years ago. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson said he "remains in disbelief" that the department has failed to adopt the reforms. Henderson's frustration with the pace of improvements was evident throughout a scathing five-page ruling issued Tuesday. "This department finds itself woefully behind its peers around the state and nation," he wrote. In his ruling, Henderson increased the oversight authority of a court-appointed monitor. Oakland Police Chief...

Oakland unveiled an austere budget Monday that calls for sweeping cuts to community favorites like Children's Fairyland and the Oakland Zoo but keeps police services intact. In all, more than $28 million will be sliced from the budget, mostly from the $388 million general fund. The cuts are due to the loss of redevelopment funds, which Oakland used to fund services and programs across the city. "It's not clean and neat. We wish it were," said Mayor Jean Quan. "For California's older, larger cities, like Oakland, losing these redevelopment funds has been very, very tough." The City Council will discuss...

The news spotlight has moved elsewhere, but Oakland continues to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for the Occupy protests. Every week for the past month, more than 100 cops, or roughly one-fifth of the city's patrol force, are called in to work the Saturday night Occupy demonstration held downtown. Estimated cost: about $50,000 a week. City officials now estimate their overall Occupy tab is up to $3 million and counting - this at a time when up to 400 city workers will likely be laid off Feb. 1 for lack of money.

In the world outside public education, people apply for a job they want, interview with their potential boss, compete against other applicants and are ultimately selected if they look like a good fit for the position. It doesn't work that way in public education. In schools, teachers do all the normal things to get hired, but when it comes to placement, seniority is what counts, not the perfect fit. The teacher with the longest tenure in a district gets first dibs on any available job at a school, with the principal - the school's boss - getting little or no...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan can’t catch a break. Quan was visiting Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting when she was spotted riding in a cab by Occupy DC protesters and surrounded. Quan sat in the cab and shielded her face while roughly a dozen protesters surrounded the car and chanted, “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” “We were busy talking away, and I looked up and there were all these protesters there,” Quan said in a interview with the Oakland Tribune. “I think they freaked out the taxi driver.” Police moved in and pushed the protesters out of the...

The Rev. Harold Mayberry stood before his First African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation Sunday morning in Oakland and outlined how it was time for members to connect with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Nationally, many African American leaders have acknowledged a disconnect between the Occupy Wall Street movement and the larger black community. Mayberry is among nearly two dozen prominent African American Bay Area pastors trying to bridge that gap at the community level through a growing national effort that is ramping up today - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - called Occupy the Dream. Nationally, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons,...

Oakland -- Hundreds of City of Oakland employees will receive layoff notices next week, as the city embarks on severe cost-cutting measures to make up for the loss of redevelopment funds, city staff said Thursday. The pink slips will arrive next week, when City Administrator Deanna Santana releases the 2012-2012 budget.The redevelopment agency - which will be nearly eliminated due to state cutbacks - has 158 full-time positions and more than 200 workers. But because of seniority rules, some of those employees might be transferred to other departments.

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In her first year in office, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan lost two top aides, watched a well-regarded police chief resign, saw a parcel tax she had pushed get crushed at the ballot box and became the subject of two recall campaigns. And much of that was even before the city's Oct. 25 raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment, a violent clash between police and protesters on the City Hall lawn that made Quan a national lightning rod for criticism, particularly after she allowed the protesters to re-establish their camp the next day. "It was very tough," Quan said of her...

The attorney for former Your Black Muslim Bakery head Yusuf Bey IV is expected to be suspended from practicing law after acknowledging that she smuggled documents for Bey. Under a deal with the State Bar Court, 65-year-old Lorna Patton Brown would have to serve at least six months of a two-year suspension.

When Gov. Jerry Brown re-entered political life via the Oakland mayor's office in 1998, everyone expected the return of the ultra-liberal policies that had defined his political career and earned him the nickname he never liked. But his actions as a mayor, from promoting downtown development to opening a military school to pushing law and order were hardly the trademarks of Gov. Moonbeam. Brown made the transition from political visionary to pragmatic politician in Oakland because idealism didn't help the city address its crime, education and fiscal challenges. Oakland's current mayor, Jean Quan, could borrow a few pages from his...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday said Oakland city officials can - and should - keep the port open in the event of future demonstrations. The governor, speaking to reporters in a wide-ranging news conference at his office in the Capitol, was asked to comment on Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's assertion last week during a meeting with Chronicle editors that the city may be unable to prevent further shutdowns of the port. "There are the resources under mutual aid, there are resources in Oakland - with some leadership and some imagination not only can they keep the port open but they...

Here's what we know about the Port of Oakland:It's the fifth-biggest container port in the United States.It supports an estimated 73,000 regional jobs. It indirectly provides millions in tax revenue to the city of Oakland.The mayor of that city has essentially washed her hands of any responsibility for its well-being.The last fact we learn from Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who told The Chronicle this week that: (A) It's "absolutely" impossible to prevent shutdowns like those organized by the Occupy movement; and (B) Should the port want the Oakland police to give it a genuine college try anyway - "if the...

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said Wednesday that the city probably would be unable to stop future Occupy demonstrations from shutting down the Port of Oakland and that attempting to do so would require at least 500 police officers, which the city would deploy if the port paid the $1.5 million cost. In a meeting with Chronicle editors, Quan said that even with that many officers, a handful of protesters could sneak around police lines and shut down the port. "I don't know what you know about the port, but with the longshoremen it only takes one person with a bike...

OAKLAND -- If Oakland police are ordered to stop any future port blockades by Occupy activists, they are probably capable of doing it. It would go over badly with core activists, however, and the two sides already have a history of violent confrontations. But after last week's Occupy protests resulted in a port shutdown that police did little to prevent, several City Council members have concluded that the economic consequences of blockades outweigh the risks of confrontation. The council will consider a resolution tonight directing City Administrator Deanna Santana, who oversees the Police Department, to "use whatever lawful tools we...

An unruly Occupy camp. Violent protests that attracted national condemnation. A 1-year-old child shot to death on the street. Two sports teams looking to leave town. A recall campaign. No wonder Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is going to delete her Facebook page, which her staff says has attracted threats, bigoted rants and all-round angry emotions. “Mayor Quan will be disabling this Facebook fan page. If you would like to contact the mayor’s office, please use (her website),” her staff posted on the page late Thursday. And as you might expect, that post attracted more than 160 comments in just 12...

Even as the Occupy movement attempted to spread its influence on Monday by forcing the shutdown of ports of call up and down the West Coast, its numbers appeared to be shrinking. In early November, tens of thousands of protesters marched to shut down a single eight-hour work shift at the Port of Oakland. Now, six weeks later, several thousand hardy souls braved cold, drizzling rain and steady winds on the Oakland waterfront to block truck access to the city-owned maritime operation. It could have been the weather, but the group's tactics and the justification for its actions are losing...

OAKLAND -- More than a month after taking up a perch in a sycamore at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, tree-sitters came down today, Oakland police said. At 8 a.m., public works crews started dismantling a structure erected in the tree in early November by Zachary RunningWolf, along with three other wooden platforms. RunningWolf and a second tree-sitter took up residence in the tree as part of the Occupy Oakland protest and remained there after the Occupy tent city was raided and dismantled by police on Nov. 14. RunningWolf was not there this morning when police arrived. Two other tree-sitters, who...

On Tuesday, activists stood in front of two West Oakland foreclosures, proclaiming that they had "reclaimed" or "liberated" the properties as part of the "Occupy Our Homes" national day of action organized by the Occupy movement and community groups to highlight the foreclosure crisis. "We're taking over houses until the (banks) give them back to people," Thaddeus Guidry, 24, said as he lit a barbecue in the front yard of a duplex on 10th Street near Mandela Parkway and other protesters milled around inside the property. Over on Adeline Street, Gayla Newsome stood in front of the townhouse she'd lost...

A 1-year-old boy who was shot in the head during the filming of a rap music video in Oakland was taken off life support Friday. Hiram Lawrence, who would have turned 2 on Dec. 28, was pronounced dead at 3:05 p.m., the Rev. Roosevelt Taylor said. Hiram was being held by his father, also named Hiram Lawrence, when gunfire erupted as about 20 people gathered outside a west Oakland liquor store Nov. 28, police said. Six other people were wounded, including Hiram's father, who was shot in the hand. Investigators have said the shooting occurred after one group of people...

Remember last month's several-hour shutdown of the Port of Oakland - that "historic and effective action" that "lives in the hearts of people across Oakland and around the country," according to Occupy Oakland? Well, on Monday, there's to be an encore, not just in Oakland, but up and down the West Coast, "in solidarity with longshoremen, port workers and truckers in their struggle against the 1 percent," says the group. "We will blockade all of the West Coast Ports on Dec. 12. Together we are unstoppable! Strike while the iron is hot!" it declared in a call to arms. Trouble...

Two days after the West Oakland shootout that left 1-year-old Hiram Lawrence on life support with a bullet to the head and six other people wounded, one of the suspects in the attack unwittingly crossed paths with the tot's family at Children's Hospital Oakland - and got pummeled. Oakland police said the man - who was arrested on suspicion of assault - is one of the five "persons of interest" in the Nov. 29 firefight at Seventh and Willow streets, in the shadow of the elevated BART tracks. Three men in hooded sweatshirts opened fire on a group in a...

Police ID Suspect in Deadly Shooting Near Occupy OaklandAn Oakland resident was arrested by police in Lexington, Ky. Saturday, Dec 3, 2011 | Updated 7:23 AM PST A man suspected of fatally shooting a man near the former Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza was arrested in Kentucky on Sunday, police said. Oakland resident Norris Terrell was arrested by police in Lexington, Ky. on suspicion of fatally shooting 25 year-old Kayode Foster on Nov. 10. According to police, Terrell was charged Thursday with one count of murder and shooting into an inhabited dwelling. Three other suspects have also been...

The petitions to recall embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan have been all but cleared for takeoff and could be on the streets by next week. Once Quan's opponents make a few minor wording changes, they'll have 160 days to collect the 19,800 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, said City Clerk LaTonda Simmons. Gene Hazzard, the legally designated head of the recall effort, said his forces could be gathering signatures by next week. "I'm very methodical, surgical and lethal," Hazzard said. Being Oakland, however, things are never that cut and dried. There's already a split within the...

At least eight people, including a 1-year-old boy, were shot Monday night during what police said was a videotaping of a rap music video. The child was reported in critical condition after undergoing surgery at Children's Hospital Oakland for a bullet wound to the head. An adult woman was also in critical condition with unspecified injuries, according to Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson. Police said the other victims were in stable condition. Police said an Oakland rapper who goes by the name of Kafani was at the scene of the shooting, which happened at 6:08 p.m. in the 700...