Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
LA Times reporter Richard Marosi talks to the PBS News Hour about his detailed series on how drugs actually make it across the US-Mexico border. For more, check out parts I, II, III, and IV of the series.
Henderson Images
Two men were shot to death by Oakland Police during a joint OPD-Drug Enforcement Administration operation that turned confrontational, according to department officials. Around 10:30 PM, Oakland Police say they received information a crime was about to take place near the 3000 block of Curran Avenue, between Coolidge and 35th Avenues in East Oakland.
Oakland Police officers located a car they were searching for with three suspects. When officers attempted to stop the car, OPD say two of the men inside stepped out with weapons. One confronted officers and was fatally shot. The second armed man fled into a nearby backyard. The third occupant of the car, who was unarmed, was shot and wounded near the street curb. Both wounded men were were given medical treatment on the scene but died from their wounds.
Media reports identified Fletcher Jackson, 30, as one of the dead men. The other slain man and the suspect still in custody have not been identified.
The third suspect was found soon thereafter hiding under a tree in the yard of the house where the shootings took place. Police say he was located with the assistance of a helicopter mounted with a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared Device) camera that is capable of detecting heat signatures through walls and other objects. A weapon was also recovered nearby, and the suspect is being held on a parole violation.
Salinas, California would rather be known as the birthplace of John Steinbeck. But as of late, the news coming out of the small, agricultural city of 150,000 is mostly accounts of murders, big drug busts, and gang-related violence. The city has tried a number of strategies for uprooting gangs in the town over the past decades–they’ve tried gang injunctions, as well as bringing in federal and state officers. Yet the violence persists.
So Salinas officials are trying something new. This latest strategy has been honed in other desert towns tens of thousands of miles away – in the outskirts of Iraq and Afghanistan. This story appeared on last night’s Crosscurrents. Audio above and transcript after the jump.
Ali Winston
Two unidentified officers monitor and record demonstrators in Downtown Oakland on July 8th, 2010
Documents recently obtained by The Informant reveal the significant involvement of state and federal law enforcement in monitoring the various Oscar Grant protests in Oakland over the past two years.
According to internal Oakland Police Department documents about the July 8th protests that followed Johannes Mehserle’s involuntary manslaughter conviction, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Secret Service, and the California Department of Justice were assigned to monitor crowd activities.
Thirty-three federal, state and local officers were assigned to video details posted in buildings surrounding Frank Ogawa Plaza and throughout the crowd of several hundred demonstrators. Among them were personnel from the Secret Service, the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, and Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence who took video of the protest. Some DEA and Oakland Police officers recorded the protest, while others dressed in plainclothes provided intelligence from within the crowd to OPD’s Emergency Operations Command Center at 1605 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The NPR Argo Network is a collection of websites by NPR member stations committed to strengthening local journalism
Learn More...
Humanosphere reports on global health and the fight against poverty from KPLU in Seattle
The Empire Reports on city and state politics from WNYC in New York
The Informant reports on cops, courts and communities from KALW in Oakland
Multi-American reports on immigration and cultural fusion from KPCC in Southern California
On Campus reports on higher education from MPR in Minnesota
Ecotrope reports on nature and community from OPB in Oregon
The Key reports on local music from WXPN in Philadelphia
CommonHealth reports on health, medicine and healthcare reform from WBUR in Boston
Argo MindShift reports on technology and education from KQED in San Francisco
Home Post reports on the military from KPBS in San Diego
DCentric reports on race and class from WAMU in Washington, D.C.
