Man Punches Undercover Oakland Police Officer At 359 Grand Av

Oakland might be getting more coverage from the mainstream white national media, but the fact of the matter is, that’s all show. The city really isn’t better at all and the public relations masks an ugly, dark, underbelly of criminal actions that are done largely by young black men.

After what happened the last two weeks, I’m really sick and tired of it and Oakland has to stop it. Of course, in my case, it could have been the full moon. It was out tonight. I’ll have to think about that one while I blog about this to get it out of my system.

My friend and I were walking down Grand Avenue, and from The Alley, talking about this and that, as I ran into her as I was leaving the Rod Dibble-ruled piano bar there, and she was walking home from work, passing by as I exited. So, we walked together to catch up on things going on.

As we walked, we eventually came to the Round Table Pizza and Room 389 Bar across the street. She saw friends of hers who were driving in a black Mercedes Benz pull up across the way, on the Room 389 Bar side. As we crossed the street, I heard my friend yell something at someone to my left, and I realized it was to a couple of bikers who whizzed by. They said something back to her, and it was all related to the fact that they did flash by rather close to us, but I just didn’t notice them; she did, and was angry and loaded for bear, looking for a fight.

We arrived to the sidewalk near The Room 389 entrance, and she stopped to talk to the guys in the Benz, while I went inside the bar, thinking she was coming in behind me.

Well, I went into Room 389 to grab a quick one, and I thought my friend was behind me, but she wasn’t. So, after about 4 minutes in the establishment, tops, I walked out and to go home.

There, outside, my friend was talking to the guys who were in the Mercedes Benz. But when she saw me, she pointed as if to say ‘I’m with him.’ I said “I thought you were coming in behind me,” but overall it was no big deal to me. I didn’t know who those guys were and didn’t care to know. I said “Ready to go?” She said “yes.” Again, whatever that was about, or who they were, I did not know or care about to be honest.

So, we walked down Grand and past the late night store that sells the overpriced, well, everything, but the owners and managers are some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. Then, I felt something behind me.

The “something” was a man walking behind us by about six feet, so I turned around and got a look at him – slight build, light skinned, 5 foot 10, maybe African American but more middle eastern than black, and without kinky hair, white t-shirt, v-neck, trimmed beard, blue jeans, large brown eyes, narrow nose.

Once I focused in on him, he slowed down and the distance between he and my friend and I increased. So, I turned back and we continued talking about what the bikers said to her, because I was fascinated by her anger. Ok, I’m being candid here. To hear a woman say that she wants another person male or female come back so she can kick their ass is totally primal sexy. It just is.

My habit is to question such behavior, and find a way to deflect it, but this night, I was tired, she was pissed, and I was a tad excited by the whole deal, and the Moon was full.

So I just listened to her.

Then, the guy I described walked quickly by me, from my right, and rapidly walked up to a black, bald, man dressed in black, standing with one knee on a stair at 359 Grand Avenue, talking to two or three others (I didn’t get a good look), and in what seemed to be slow-motion to me, gave him a right hook to the jaw.

I overheard someone say “He’s police. He’s police” referring to the guy he hit in the jaw. I was wondering why he did that to the man, but just then my friend said “Zennie, let’s get out of here,” so I followed her and we immediately walked briskly across the street.

As we did, she apparently managed to get a view of what was happening behind us, or someone said something she picked up, because the next words were “Zennie, he’s got a gun.” So fast walks turned to runs to the gas station across the street. She went behind the main structure where the pay window is, and I ducked behind a column that I figured would be out of bullet course. Nothing came our way.

On the way home, we encountered others who lived in the neighborhood: young, white, and what someone might call ‘hip.’ And we talked about what we saw.

One guy said the man who was the police officer pushed the guy back into a set of trash cans, and then got up, brandishing a gun. That’s about when my friend said we should skeedadle out of there.

Whatever. For me, enough is enough.

I was going to have my Mom come out for a visit last week, but on Monday, a week ago, as the cab I was in drove up, a woman screamed in Vietnamese. She had been robbed across the street just then. After the police cars came over, about four of them thankfully, I learned that one of the men, again, black, fired a gun that grazed a car on our side of the street. That was too close for comfort. If the cab driver arrived just five minutes earlier we’d have been right in the middle of that crime.

So, I felt that it was better for Mom to stay where she was and I’d come back to Georgia. Where we live outside of Atlanta is one of the safest places in America. That can’t be said for Oakland.

From what I’ve experienced, there’s too much bad going on after sundown around here, this summer. I don’t know why an undercover cop was involved in whatever he was doing, or who the guy was who punched him, or why he stupidly did it.

And I don’t care, either.

I just know this: having a real, known, police presence at certain places is much better than spread out and scatter shot. There’s too much crime happening in the areas between Grand Avenue, Mandana, Lakeshore, and then along Lakeshore but to East 18th, and then in a line across the lake to Lenox, up to Adams, over to Mac Arthur, and then back to Grand Avenue. That takes in parts of Adams Point and Haddon Hill, and the Grand Avenue, Lakeshore Avenue, and Grand between Staten and Perkins, business districts.

In the area I described there’s little visible police presence at all. Station police cars on Grand Avenue in front of Room 389 (sorry, folks, but it’s needed), and at Grand at Lake Park, in the Bank of America / Kwik Way parking lot, and between 8 PM and 1 AM will do the trick in terms of improving response times and reducing the occurrence of stupid actions.

Lastly, the other action we all can take is simple: don’t walk around alone. Get to know your neighbor, and your business owner. Meeting neighbors should not be relegated to National Night Out – that should be all day, everyday. Walk down the street and hold your head up, not down.

Finally, this last idea’s going to sound really wild, but I don’t care. We need to encourage people who want to play the role of masked avenger to do so, and be registered to do that. In other words, an Oakland Superhero Task Force.

You laugh about this, but I can’t think of a better way to enlist people to take back their streets and stop this crap from happening so much. Those who pass Oakland Police registration and tests both physical and mental would be paid a fee for service, and given bullet-proof vests, radios, handguns, and handcuffs. The superheros would be permitted to make any kind of non-lethal weapon to use in the process of their work: shields, ropes, personal drones, whatever. They would have to register their superhero name and costume style, which could be anything, but we would not have two look-alikes.

It sounds strange, but think about it. We would be able to augment Oakland Police, provide a deterrent to crime, and do it in a fun way that brings Oakland together.

We have to do something because what’s going on now isn’t working. You can talk about your new Oakland eateries all you want to, and I love em, but other than that, we don’t have downtown retail, our sports teams are trying to leave us, our unemployment rate is chronically high and especially for African Americans, we don’t seem to have a sense of real, honest to goodness community, the tax-increment tool we once had to pay for ways to solve our problems was taken from us by our former Mayor, Governor Jerry Brown, and our local leaders seem to be, well, not leading at all.

We’re in trouble, Oakland is. And we’d better wake up and snap out of our own personal la-la land and deal with the truth.

Stay tuned.