A shooting last week on the Ohlone Greenway sparked suggestions from readers about ways the pathway could be made safer. The ideas included installing video cameras and clearing overgrown vegetation along the trail.
Here's a comment from a reader named Debbie: "That is a total drug magnet area. The benches in the park adjacent have all kinds of drug paraphernalia litter. Crack vials, blunt wrappers, alcohol bottles etc. Clear cut the tall vegetation on the path, get rid of the benches and make the park a fenced community garden and it will make a difference. Also put a camera on this stretch. It is my understanding that the Bart path is a favored gang initiation territory for high school kids. So the solution is to make it crime proof. This is possible guys. There are landscapers that specialize in crime detecting design. It will be worth the money. And solvable- remember this is targeted crime as well not random or psychotic."
I called the El Cerrito Police Department Tuesday morning to see what they thought about security cameras and trimming vegetation as ways to make the greenway safer. I'll add their comments when and if I receive them.
The tags mark the area as belonging to the gangs. Leaving the tags on the pillars encourages that understanding and possibly provokes violent gang territorial conflicts.
They have been very responsive to communicating, writing work orders, and identifying other agencies when it is not in El Cerrito's jurisdiction. This is why the photo is important at time of reporting. I have experimenting with both direct reports to webpage and using an general fix it app. Direct report is far better. The address is: http://el-cerrito.org/requesttracker.aspx
I asked the El Cerrito police chief for data on violent crime. A member of her staff provided the following information in a timely manner. I put all of the incidents into an Excel spreadsheet in order to summarize the data. robbery 55 battery 7 rape 1 Summaries Year 2008 33 2009 14 2010 8 2011 6 2012 2 Total 63 Month Count 1 8 2 5 3 2 4 5 5 5 6 1 7 2 8 9 9 8 10 10 11 2 12 6 Total 63 Hour 0 0 1 0 2 2 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 2 9 2 10 2 11 2 12 2 13 3 14 6 15 6 16 5 17 5 18 4 19 8 20 7 21 4 22 1 23 2 Total 63
In many parts of our city it is not unusual to see the signs, "Drive like your kids lived here!" Drivers approaching the Greenway intersections should "Drive like your kids are about to dash out from the greenway into the street ahead of your car!" If we all drove like we should and walked and bikes like we should, we would all be much safer.