Crime

OP-ED: We Are Losing Our Children’s Precious Lives to the Gun Violence Epidemic

Published

10 years ago

February 6, 2015

Oakland Post

Michael D. Bell, M.D.

By Michael D. Bell, M.D.

On Christmas Day, I started my shift at Children’s Hospital Oakland’s Emergency department and suddenly I heard trauma stat full 1 and 2.

I ran to the trauma bay to see two teenagers, shot just blocks from the hospital. In the organized chaos that followed there were surgeons, anesthesiologists and emergency doctors along with nurses, lab techs, radiology techs, a social worker and a deputy sheriff – all in their assigned places within minutes.

Unfortunately, this is a regular occurrence at every inner city trauma center.

Nationwide in 2014, there was more than 12,500 deaths due to gunshot wounds. This is 3,500 more than all the people whom died in West Africa due to the Ebola epidemic.

There were 629 children 0 –to-11-years olds and 2,353 12-to-17-year olds shot or killed in 2014, and Oakland had more than its share.

The estimated medical cost for trauma due to gunshots is $2.3 billion. In my 24 years in the ER, my youngest murder victim was11 months, and I have had at least two more under two years of age.

Most of the murdered children I see were not the intended victim but innocent bystanders. We have had bullets go through houses, buildings and cars before they struck children.

In the next few months, there will be a vaccine tested in West Africa for Ebola. There will be no vaccine for bullets.

Every time someone is shot, if the bullets travels two or three inches up or down, or left or right, the outcome could be death, brain death, permanent paralysis, blindness, loss of limb or the need for a colostomy bag.

All life is sacred and precious, but our children’s lives are the most precious. It is not just the gang bangers, but mothers, fathers, children and babies who are dying in our streets, and we accept it like it is a natural disease.

The hardest part of my job is telling parents that we could not save their child after being shot.

This is an epidemic that is destroying our future, for the future is our children. Our acceptance of it is destroying our humanity.

We must regain our village mentality. We must think of every victim as a family member. Many say Oakland does not need more police officers – they are wrong.

I had a mother in the ER who had just killed her 2-year-old child. I called the police and was told if there was no immediate threat to anybody in the ER, they could not send an officer because they had officers at three other murder scenes.

The police are an important part of the solution.

I know there is major distrust of police in our community. Like most Black males, I have experienced police abuse first hand. As a college student at a majority white school, I was surrounded by unmarked police cars from three directions and made to lie face down at gunpoint in the middle of the street while an officer held a gun to the back of my head and others frisked me.

My only offense was being Black on a campus where a Black person had raped a white coed.

Accountability is how you shape a police force to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. You achieve accountability through your elected officials.

If they are not committed to make the police force accountable, then vote them out.

We also must decrease unemployment so people don’t have to turn to crime to eat and survive.

On Sat, May 16^,Children’s Hospital and the Oakland City Council, with Board President Lynette McElhaney as the driving force, will host our first annual Stop the Violence Youth Summit.

We will speak about solutions to this epidemic and how we can keep our young people safe in their interactions with each other and with the police.

Michael D. Bell, M.D. is an attending emergency physician at UCSF Benioiff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Oakland Post

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Related Topics:Children's Hospital Oakland Gun violence Michael D. Bell M.D.OP-ED Opinion young people

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Bo Tefu

California Assembly Passes Bill to Strengthen Penalties for Soliciting Minors

The revised version of Assembly Bill 379, authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), now allows prosecutors to file felony charges against adults who solicit sex from a 16 or 17-year-old, provided the accused is three or more years older than the minor. If the offender is within three years of the minor, the charge would remain a misdemeanor.

Published

5 days ago

May 19, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

The California State Assembly has agreed to amend a controversial bill that would increase penalties for adults who solicit sex from minors ages 16 or 17, following a wave of criticism from Republicans and concerns raised by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“From a prosecutor’s standpoint, this bill strengthens California law and gives us the felony hammer to prosecute the creeps that are preying on teenagers,” Krell said in a statement supporting the amended bill.

The new amendments also include provisions for a state grant program aimed at improving the prosecution of human trafficking and sex trafficking cases, as well as a support fund for survivors partially funded by increased fines on businesses that enable or fail to address human trafficking.

The bill faced significant opposition last week after the Assembly removed a provision that would have treated solicitation of 16 and 17-year-olds as a felony for all offenders.

Oakland Post

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Activism

BOOK REVIEW: The Afterlife of Malcolm X

Betty Shabazz didn’t like to go to her husband’s speeches, but on that February night in 1965, he asked her to come with their daughters to the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Did Malcolm X sense that something bad would happen on that night? Surely. He was fully aware of the possibility, knowing that he’d been “a marked man” for months because of his very public break with the Nation of Islam.

Published

6 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Book Cover of the Afterlife of Malcolm X. Courtesy of Simon & Schuster.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: by Mark Whitaker, c.2025, Simon & Schuster, $30.99, 448 pages

Who will remember you in fifty years’ time?

A handful of friends – at least those who are still around – might recall you. Your offspring, grandkids, and greats, maybe people who stumble upon your tombstone. Think about it: who will remember you in 2075? And then read “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” by Mark Whitaker and learn about a legacy that still resonates a half-century later.

As the news of his murder spread around New York and around the world, his followers and admirers reacted in many ways. His friend, journalist Peter Goldman, was “hardly shocked” because he also knew that Malcolm’s life was in danger, but the arrest of three men accused of the crime didn’t add up. It ultimately became Goldman’s “obsession.”

Malcolm’s co-writer for The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, quietly finished the book he started with Malcolm, and a small upstart publishing house snatched it up. A diverse group of magazines got in line to run articles about Malcolm X’s life, finally sensing that White America “’needed his voice even more than Blacks did.’”

But though Malcolm X was gone, he continued to leave an impact.

He didn’t live long enough to see the official founding of the Black Panther Party, but he was influential on its beginning. He never knew of the first Kwanzaa, or the triumphs of a convert named Muhammad Ali.

Malcolm left his mark on music. He influenced at least three major athletes.

He was a “touchstone” for a president …

While it’s true that “The Afterlife of Malcolm X” is an eye-opening book, one that works as a great companion to the autobiography, it’s also a fact that it’s somewhat scattered. Is it a look at Malcolm’s life, his legacy, or is it a “murder mystery”?

Turns out, it’s all three, but the storylines are not smooth. There are twists and tangents and that may take some getting used-to. Just when you’re immersed, even absorbed in this book, to the point where you forget about your surroundings, author Mark Whitaker abruptly moves to a different part of the story. It may be jarring.

And yet, it’s a big part of this book, and it’s essential for readers to know the investigation’s outcome and what we know today. It doesn’t change Malcolm X’s legacy, but it adds another frame around it.

If you’ve read the autobiography, if you haven’t thought about Malcolm X in a while, or if you think you know all there is to know, then you owe it to yourself to find “The Afterlife of Malcolm X.”

For you, this is a book you won’t easily forget.

Oakland Post

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Bay Area

Grand Jury: Richmond Police Short-staffed Amid Budget Cuts, Council Inaction

In recent years, RPD was described as severely understaffed in two independent reports, one by Raftelis Financial Consulting (2024) and another by Matrix Consulting Group (2023). Raftelis recommended the hiring of 27 more officers and Matrix recommended hiring 30. Despite these findings, “neither report has been fully discussed by the City Council in a public meeting,” the Grand Jury report notes.

Published

6 days ago

May 18, 2025

Oakland Post

RPD headquarters. Courtesy image.

The Richmond Standard

A newly released Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury report raised concerns about public safety in Richmond caused by an understaffed police department.

The Grand Jury ultimately recommended that the Richmond City Council reverse its actions to defund the Richmond Police Department, which remains below the approved level of 146 sworn officers with a current vacancy of 23 officers, according to the report.

In 2014, when the RPD under Chief Chris Magnus gained national recognition for implementing a community policing model that drove down crime, the department boasted 196 sworn officers.

Meanwhile, crime is on the rise. While homicides were down from 18 in 2021 to 11 in 2024, violent crimes overall jumped 22.6% in that time. Robbery and aggravated assault both increased by nearly 20%, with sexual assaults up 21%, according to the grand jury report’s findings.

Those numbers are likely higher since RPD’s limited staffing means police are unable to respond to all calls for service, according to RPD authorities.

The Grand Jury report noted a pivotal moment for the police department occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.

Jumping aboard a national trend to defund police, the City Council, led by the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), reallocated $3 million away from the RPD budget, leading to downsizing or elimination of RPD’s specialized investigative units.

The funds were redirected to support the YouthWORKS Program, unhoused services, the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS), and a new alternative non-police community response team.

The latter strategy, known as the Community Crisis Response Program (CCRP), aims to reduce the number of calls to dispatch that require a law enforcement response. But the program has yet to be fully implemented and is being challenged by the RPD’s union, which takes issue with CCRP employees becoming members of SEIU Local 1021, a separate city union that routinely helps to elect RPA members to the City Council.

The Grand Jury recommends that the city use a portion of the $550 million Chevron settlement funds to hire and retain more officers. The City Council recently expressed interest in using those funds to address the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. To read the full, 10-page Grand Jury report, go to https://www.cc-courts.org/civil/docs/grandjury/2024-2025/2503/2503-DiminishingFundsandFewerOfficers.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawKR1AVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFxeW1vUTFXNWNWazZCZmxIAR6FJYmFEfK098FXFhC4lvSCMSbHr5aEVno_sZqukzhZKI9iEvsu8kr_KoKX6g_aem_Xp15VG4_irpJqDWBcAI7-g