Crime

Oakland, Violence and PTSD

Published

10 years ago

June 14, 2014

Mental health is almost never brought up as a subject of conversation in Black America – certainly not in urban communities like Oakland where shootings and bursts of domestic violence are often leading stories on the evening news.

In a city like Oakland – where 35 percent of non-affluent young adults are unemployed –children grow up in a world constantly rocked by crime and violence that shapes their expectations for themselves and they people they love.

Oakland has become a modern day warzone. According to the 2013 Year End Crime Report from the City of Oakland, the city averages 107 homicides a year. The city’s ShotSpotter technology, which captures the sound of gunshots within the city, recorded 16,000 rounds of gunfire last year.

It’s a sad truth, but by the time many Oakland youth have entered high school, they have experienced the sudden death of a friend or loved one.

Yet discussing the impact of these long-term wounds is taboo, more than likely swept under the rug where they are left to fester. The unwillingness to initiate a frank discussion of mental health issues contributes to the problem.

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime “The trauma of victimization is a direct reaction to the aftermath of crime” and that “crime victims suffer a tremendous amount of physical and psychological trauma, often referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

This is a sobering insight that becomes more starkly real in the context of one young man’s

22nd Avenue and E. 28th streets, the place where Ricky Hollins and friends were shot.

life.

Rickey Hollins, 18 years old in 2006, was standing on a corner talking to a group of friends when a car pulled up. Three shooters got out with AK47s and opened fire on the group.

His sister was shot in the pelvis, and another friend was hit in the shoulder and back. Hollins received a shoulder wound. His friend Jay Black died on the scene.

Hollins’ best friend, Willie Clay, III, was laying on the ground unresponsive. He was transported to a hospital but died from one gunshot wound to the head.

“I feel guilty because we should have left the scene before anything happened,” said Hollins. “We had a plan to leave but we stayed.”

Hollins remembers cleaning his friend’s blood and brains off the concrete. He says some of Clay’s dreadlocks had come off his head when he was shot. He cleaned them and gave them to Clay’s mother.

One health professional who has to deal with the aftermath of these bursts of horrific violence is Dr. Swapnil Shah, director of the Orthopedic Trauma Center of Alameda Health Systems.

Working at Highland Hospital, the center assists patients with numerous muscular and skeletal problems. Nearly 50 percent of those daily patients are victims of violence.

The center’s patients have physical injuries that are noticeable and in most instances easily treatable, but the psychological issues are lasting and go untreated, according to Dr. Shah.

“If they’ve lost a loved one, they will become very distrustful and easily develop a hypersensitivity to pain,” he said. “They hold onto that physical pain as a marker to their emotional pain.

“[PTSD] is an under-diagnosed condition in our clinic and undertreated condition in our population,” he said.

Willie Clay III, the best friend of Hollins who was fatally shot.

In Oakland, as in other urban communities, “It’s like a badge of honor to say I’ve been shot, but nobody is willing to say how scared they were when they got shot,…or how they feel going into the world after being shot,” Shah added.

“They are so terrified.”

Hollins is one victim who is unafraid to admit that he was scared or that the incident left him physically and emotionally sick. He said he was angry frustrated, and had to smoke a lot of weed to get through.

That instant of violence has permanently changed his perspective on life. He no longer likes Fourth of July because he can’t deal with the loud noises, and being out late makes him feel uncomfortable.

Though he went to a doctor for his physical wound, he was never offered a counselor or provided any resources to talk to a psychologist. Rather, he admits – just as Dr. Shah stated – that the bullet lodged in his bicep became a marker for his emotional pain.

Before the bullet was finally removed in 2012, he says he couldn’t work, because he couldn’t move his arm, and when he did it reminded him of the day he lost his best friend.

“It probably was a mental thing,” he said. “[But] I was never offered help, I counseled myself .”

And that’s the story that affects the lives of so many youth living in Oakland’s minority communities – the place most dominantly affected by the violence.

In order for that to change, Dr. Shah suggests that the basic approach of health systems has to be one that works with people to help them change their approach to life.

“The whole point is to not only save people lives but to save people’s lifestyles,” he said. “That shift in mentality has to come at this fundamental level.”

This story was reported with support from a grant from the nonprofit(s) Entertainment Industries Council.

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Related Topics:Alameda County Health Systems City of Oakland Highland Hospital Oakland Oakland crime report Oakland Police Department

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

18 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Alameda County

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price Announces $7.5 Million Settlement Agreement with Walmart

The settlement resolves allegations that Walmart unlawfully disposed of hazardous waste and medical waste from its facilities statewide to municipal landfills. Walmart agreed to pay $4,297,040 in civil penalties and $3,202,960 in costs, to be split among the prosecuting agencies, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, and some local environmental protection agencies. There are nine Walmart stores in Alameda County.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Oakland Post Staff

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, the California Attorney General’s Office, and eleven other prosecutors’ offices secured a $7.5 million settlement with Walmart on behalf of the People of the State of California.

“Large corporations must be held accountable when they do not follow the law and put the health and safety of Alameda County residents at risk,” said Price. “I commend my office’s Consumer Justice Bureau’s active involvement in this investigation, which helped bring this settlement forward and holds Walmart to account.”

The settlement is the result of over 70 covert waste inspections conducted by the district attorneys’ offices statewide from 2015 through 2021, including many assisted by Alameda County District Attorney’s Office environmental protection investigators. During those inspections, the offices inspected the waste that Walmart sent from its stores to local landfills and found hundreds of containers of toxic aerosols and liquid wastes (including spray paints, rust removers, bleach, and pesticides), as well as medical waste (such as over-the-counter drugs).

Improperly disposed of private consumer information was also found.

The People filed a civil law enforcement complaint against Walmart in 2021, wherein those unlawful disposals were alleged to violate the Hazardous Waste Control Law, Medical Waste Management Act, and Unfair Competition Law.

The civil action and stipulated judgment were filed in Alameda County Superior Court. The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has been involved in the investigation and civil case preparation since 2015.

The settlement also imposes injunctive terms, which require Walmart to maintain an independent, third-party auditor to conduct three annual rounds of waste audits at its facilities throughout California during the next four years. Walmart’s auditor must use specific requirements in the settlement to ensure that hazardous waste is properly classified, handled, disposed of, and transported according to California law.

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Activism

Black Tulip Calls for Action and a Cultural Shift in Oakland for Black Women’s Safety

Anyka Howard, founder of the Betti Ono Foundation and visionary of Black Tulip, expressed the core value of the movement and urgent need for change. “We’re not going to tolerate Oakland being a hotbed for dysfunction and violence, and perpetuating harms against Black women and girls,” Howard said. “We deserve better, we are worthy, our lives matter, and it’s time for us to boldly, and collectively proclaim that and expect the appropriate response.”

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Jada Imani and another Black Tulip attendee building an altar at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater in honor of artist Zoe Reidy Watts, 25, who was killed in Oakland in March. Courtesy photo.

By Kristal Raheem
Special to The Post

Last week, Oakland City Council voted to adopt a resolution supporting the federal Protect Black Women and Girls Act, (H.R. 7354). The federal law would establish an interagency task force to examine the experiences of Black women in U.S. society, from education to health care to jobs to housing.

A 2020 study by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation reported that 40% of humans being trafficked in the U.S. are Black women. In 2022, the FBI reported 97,000 Black women were missing. That same year in Oakland, 400 Black women were reported missing.

The Council vote on Oct. 15 was just the latest reflection of a blossoming movement in Oakland demanding greater protection for Black women and girls.

From Oct. 3-5, the Betti Ono Foundation, in partnership with the Black Arts Movement Business District and Community Development Corporation (BAMB CDC), hosted their inaugural Black Tulip Cultural Week of Action.

The Black Tulip event series included a write-in at the BAMB CDC, an Oakland’s First Friday partnership, and a Day of Action at Lake Merritt.

Howard said everyone must support Black Tulip’s mission, regardless of race and other social identities. She specifically called for men to show up more as allies.

West Oakland native and founder of Black Terminus AR, Damien McDuffie, said the Town’s “pimp culture” has warped how Black women are treated. “Oakland has a complex history around sexual assault and pimp culture, so I think we have a warped sense of what safety might look like, especially for women and girls,” Damien saud. “I think a real impact on how women are treated here in Oakland or in the Bay Area will come from a culture shift.”

The Black Tulip Day of Action took place on Saturday, Oct. 5. Healers, poets, and musicians joined forces to amplify joy, remembrance, and hope.

Oakland educator and healer Venus Morris co-hosted the event alongside honorary guest speaker and singer Dawn Richard.

Richard is the artist relations director with the Hip Hop Caucus, an organization that helps artists use their platform to advocate for important issues. She is also one of 120 people being represented in a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs for alleged sexual assault and abuse.

Despite the media frenzy regarding the legal case, Richard showed up in Oakland to stand in solidarity for the mission of Black Tulip. “I think our narrative has been stolen from us,” Richard said. “We’ve lost the narrative of what we represent in this culture and in this society. We are more and I think this event exemplifies that.”

Participants gathered to honor the lives of Black women who lost their lives to violence while also celebrating one another as the journey for justice continues.

“We are the mothers, the womb of this earth. There is no America, no globalization, no capitalism, without us,” Howard told Oakland Voices. “People are taught to see us in a particular way that does not honor who we are. Black Tulip is a reclamation of our sacredness. It’s an affirmation, a calling, a demand.”

This story was initially published by Oakland Voices (http://oaklandvoices.us). The author previously worked as a communications and public relations manager for Councilmember Treva Reid.