Ursula Jones Dickson vows to put crime victims first and to ensure the DA's office is capably managed. She has out-fundraised her two opponents combined and has widespread support from city and county officials, as well as from many of the deputy DAs who work in her office.
OAKLAND Shane Killian's neighbor heard loud bangs on the night of July 10, 2024, but assumed it was just someone lighting off the last of their fireworks from Independence Day. Instead, the resident of Kitty Hawk Road in Alameda was hearing five family members being slaughtered next door, gunned down one at a time, allegedly by Killian. A few moments later, one of the victims, 70-year-old Michel Angel Carcamo Ramirez, showed up at the neighbor's front door and began to frantically ring his bell, the neighbor testified at Killian's preliminary hearing last month.
County leaders approved a contract with Flock in June 2023 to cover unincorporated parts of the county with over 100 license plate readers. Last April, the board agreed to pay for Flock's pan-tilt-zoom cameras, which allow the sheriff's department to conduct surveillance on pedestrians, vehicles, and more. In July, the board signed a $600,000 year-long deal with Flock for the AeroDome system, which stations drones at sheriff's facilities where they can be deployed on a minute's notice.
Alameda County supervisors are delaying a decision on whether to renew a one-year contract with Flock Safety, the company behind automated license plate reader cameras used by local law enforcement. The proposed extension would cost $854,200, up from the current $550,600 contract that expires at the end of June. But after hours of public comment Tuesday, supervisors opted to push the decision to April 21, citing unresolved questions about data privacy and government access to surveillance information.
The meeting, with a yet-to-be-determined date, comes as significant questions remain about plans for the 112 acres of land, the largest publicly owned redevelopment site in Oakland. The Coliseum's fate is tied up in complex negotiations between the city and county and the developers hoping to purchase the property. The Coliseum is jointly owned by Oakland and Alameda County. In 2019, the county entered a deal with the A's baseball team's owners to sell its 50% undivided interest in the property to the team.
In the first moments of daylight on Thursday, a trio of volunteers peeked into the busted-out windows of an old transit bus on Oakland's San Pablo Avenue. They wondered: Was someone living in there? That was the question asked by more than a thousand volunteers in Alameda County on Thursday, who took to the streets and shelters to count as many unhoused people as they could find.
Alameda and Contra Costa counties are included in a flash flood warning released by the National Weather Service on Thursday at 3:01 a.m. The warning is in effect until 6 a.m. At 3:01 a.m., Doppler radar indicated heavy rain across the warned area. Between 0.5 and 1 inch of rain has fallen. Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly, according to the NWS San Francisco CA.
Miraculously, both my parents are safe, Fox wrote. My mom was in the living room when the house suddenly and violently exploded. . . . My mom's glasses were blown off her face. Her phone, wallet, and ID, clothing, documents. A lifetime's worth of tools and family heirlooms are gone in an instant. The explosion in the 800 block of East Lewelling Avenue happened about 9:38 a.m. and caused a three-alarm fire.
Judge Clifford Blakely's ruling came after Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson's office asked to bring an end to the case, citing concerns about proving the allegations at trial, which was been scheduled to begin in late January. The dismissal closes the first Alameda County case of a police officer charged in an on-duty killing since BART Officer Johannes Mehserle was tried - and convicted - in the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant more than 15 years ago.
The request by Jones Dickson's administration which is expected to be argued at a hearing Friday morning marks yet another twist in the case against Jason Fletcher, who was charged with manslaughter months after the killing but has yet to face trial amid a rotating cast of district attorneys. His case has since become a rallying cry by advocates pushing for greater accountability among law enforcement officers who use deadly force.
I have a knot in my stomach every single day, said Rachel Rosekind, 49, an El Cerrito mother whose monthly premium will go from $0 to $2,500 a month for her family of four. Rosekind, a self-employed freelancer, said she was fortunate during the pandemic to qualify for a $0 premium for a Kaiser high-deductible plan through the state's health insurance exchange.
The outlook is unpleasant right now. It is going to be a challenge that we're getting through, but I would also add that this is what food banks are built for, said Michael Altfest, communications director for Alameda County Community Food Bank. What it's going to require is support. So the fact that the county is recognizing this and really believes food is a basic human right shows they're doing what they can.
Alameda County officials have raised another $1.5 million in food assistance as uncertainty about November SNAP benefits persists. On Friday, two federal judges separately ruled that the Trump administration has acted unlawfully by withholding SNAP during the government shutdown and by refusing to tap into a $6 billion emergency reserve. But it's still unclear whether SNAP recipients will wake up tomorrow with their funds loaded or whether there will be further delays or only partial payments.
Andrea Zambrana no longer leads the Court Appointed Attorneys Program, the Alameda County Bar Association's leaders confirmed this week. The program, which is administered by the bar association, pays for private attorneys to represent defendants who cannot be represented by the Alameda County Public Defender's Office due to conflicts of interest. The change was first announced in an internal email - obtained by this news organization - to several members of the program on Sept. 10.
The attorney for a former San Leandro police officer charged with manslaughter in a 2020 death of Steven Taylor wants a judge to toss the case, amid claims of unscrupulous behavior by a since-departed Alameda County prosecutor. The request on behalf of Jason Fletcher who has since retired from the San Leandro Police Department comes less than two months after the officer's attorney, Michael Rains, accused one Alameda County prosecutor of unethical behavior.
People who gather to watch sideshows garnered an unusual legal win, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just did donuts all over Alameda County's law saying that it's a crime to even watch a sideshow, and they struck that law down. City governments all over the Bay Area have been grasping at straws for ways they can discourage or prevent sideshows from happening nigh every weekend during the warm-weather months.
