Man jailed over revenge attack on police
TOWNSVILLE, December 11, 2006: A man has been jailed for a revenge attack on the police liaison officer who was in the Palm Island island watchhouse when Mulrunji Doomadgee was killed two years ago.
Albert James Wotton, 22, was on Friday sentenced in the Townsville District Court to two years jail after he pleaded guilty to assaulting off-duty police liaison officer Lloyd Bengaroo in April last year.
He will be eligible for parole after eight months.
The assault at Happy Valley, near Townsville, occurred five months after Mulrunji's death in custody that sparked violent riots on the island.
Mr Bengaroo was in the island's watchhouse with Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley when Mulrunji died from serious injuries after being arrested for being a public nuisance.
In September this year, acting state coroner Christine Clements found Snr Sgt Hurley delivered the fatal blows that killed Mulrunji.
Snr Sgt Hurley has been stood down with full pay while the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decides if he will be charged.
On April 22, 2005, Mr Bengaroo had been drinking with friends in a Townsville pub when they decided to continue on with another group at Happy Valley, the court was told by prosecutors.
He was approached by another man, Gerard Nuggins, who started to abuse him, claiming he was responsible for Mulrunji's death, before kicking and punching him.
The court was told while Mr Bengaroo was on his knees, Wotton joined in, kicking him twice in the head.
Mr Bengaroo needed hospital attention for cuts to his face and knees
By Dave Donaghy December 11 National Indigenous Times
Secrets of the Didjeridoo
Researcher and player, Benjamin Lange
Scientists have revealed the secrets of playing the didgeridoo, the world's oldest wind instrument, according to research in this week's edition of the journal, Nature.
While it's long been known that the didgeridoo's characteristic sound relies on the player's vocal tract to produce enhanced frequency bands called formants, the mechanism was unknown.
Formants are characteristic sound frequencies that identify vowels to listeners of human speech.
A team of Australian scientists measured the acoustic response of a player's vocal tract while playing - the first time this has been done.
The sound produced by the vibrating lips travels both into the instrument and the player's mouth where it is affected by the resonances of the vocal tract, says UNSW physicist, Professor Joe Wolfe, one of the research authors.
Resonance is the amplification of sound by its surroundings. What was unexpected is that the resonances suppress vibration at some frequencies. The formants or prominent frequencies are the ones left behind.
Lead author Alex Tarnopolsky continued: "To make the resonances strong enough, a player must keep his vocal cords in the almost closed position, which is not normal for breathing, but which reflects the sound waves so that they don't get absorbed by the lungs."
Experienced players learn to keep their vocal cords in this almost-closed position unconsciously, according to UNSW research author, Dr John Smith.
"If you leave the vocal folds in the open position normally used for breathing, you don't get strong resonances in the vocal tract because the sound is absorbed by the lungs," said Dr Smith.
The didgeridoo is also known also as yidaki or yiraki in the language of the Yolngu people of northern Australia, where it originated.
Expulsion of Arabs in Niger
Leaders of around 150,000 Arabs in Niger say they will fight in court moves to expel them to Chad.
They told reporters in Niamey they would defend themselves against attack.
Niger's government has ordered the Arabs, known as Mahamid, to leave the country accusing them of wrongdoing, including theft and rape.
But they insist they are citizens of Niger and "have no other country to go to", after being given five days to leave the country.
The Mahamid also say they will take their case to the United Nations Security Council.
But the BBC's Idy Baraou says the decision to challenge the government's order through the courts may have come too late, as reports from the east of Niger confirm that the authorities had begun rounding Arabs up around Diffa, located some 1,500km from Niamey.
NIGER'S MAHAMID ARABS
Originally nomads from Chad
150,000 live mainly in Diffa State
Many came after 1974 drought
More fled 1980s Chad fighting
Fought against 1990s Tuareg rebellion
Many of the Arabs came to Niger from neighbouring Chad following the 1974 drought in Chad.
Others who were fleeing fighting in Chad arrived in the 1980s. Many have since risen to senior positions in the military, local administration and in business.
The governor of Diffa State, where most of the Mahamid live, told them it was "high time" to pack and return to Chad.
"We have decided, starting today, to expel these nomadic Arab 'Mohamides' to their home countries," Niger's Interior Minister Mounkaila Modi told national television.
"These foreigners have shown no respect to the rights of the natives and they're putting pressure on pastures in this region. We can no longer accept seeing our ecosystem degraded by foreigners."
Arid zone
Mr Modi said the Mahamid possessed illegal firearms and were a serious threat to the security of local communities and that their camels were draining local oases, Reuters news agency reports.
Like the rest of the country, the east of Niger is extremely arid.
It is populated by nomadic cattle herders, whilst the Arabs also own camels. Not surprisingly, one source of the tension between the communities is water.
With the Sahara desert expanding quite quickly there are growing fears that the scarcity of water could spark future problems in many African countries in the region.
The BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross says that with the spread of Islam to Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, Arabs greatly expanded their presence and influence and there are many examples of how the African and Arab cultures have mixed.
For example, some 20% of East Africa's Swahili language comes from Arabic. Arab and non-Arab Africans both had the common goal of opposing European colonialists.
But there have also been areas where the cultures have clashed, one example being Sudan, which has been plagued by conflict between the Arab dominated government in the north and the black African south.
Severe Space Storm Headed to Earth
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827...pot_930_01.jpg New Forecast: Severe Space Storm Headed to Earth
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 13 December 2006
03:45 pm ET
Editor's Note: This forecast replaces the predictive aspects of this earlier story on the solar flare.
Space weather forecasters revised their predictions for storminess after a major flare erupted on the Sun overnight threatening damage to communication systems and power grids while offering up the wonder of Northern Lights.
"We're looking for very strong, severe geomagnetic storming" to begin probably around mid-day Thursday, Joe Kunches, Lead Forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center, told SPACE.com this afternoon.
The storm is expected to generate aurora or Northern Lights, as far south as the northern United States Thursday night. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are not expected to be put at additional risk, Kunches said.
Radio communications, satellites and power grids could face potential interruptions or damage, however.
Solar flares send radiation to Earth within minutes. Some are also accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CME), clouds of charged particles that arrive in a day or two. This flare unleashed a strong CME that's aimed squarely at Earth.
"It's got all the right stuff," Kunches said.
However, one crucial component to the storm is unknown: its magnetic orientation. If it lines up a certain way with Earth's magnetic field, then the storm essentially pours into our upper atmosphere. If the alignment is otherwise, the storm can pass by the planet with fewer consequences.
Kunches and his team are advising satellite operators and power grid managers to keep an eye on their systems. In the past, CMEs have knocked out satellites and tripped terrestrial power grids. Engineers have learned to limit switching at electricity transfer stations, and satellite operators sometimes reduce operations or make back-up plans in case a craft is damaged.
Another aspect of a CME involves protons that get pushed along by the shock wave. Sometimes these protons break through Earth's protective magnetic field and flood the outer reaches of the atmosphere—where the space station orbits—with radiation. The science of it all is a gray area, Kunches said. But the best guess now is that there will only be a slight increase in proton activity. That's good news for the astronauts.
"When the shock goes by, we don't expect significant radiation issues," he said.
The astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution last night.
Now that sunspot number 930 has flared so significantly—after several days of being quiet—the forecast calls for a "reasonble chance" of more major flares in coming days, Kunches said.
Anti-gang injunction polarizes a town
Anti-gang injunction polarizes a town
West Sacramento's experience may hold lesson for S.F., which has adopted similar strategy
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
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(12-26) 04:00 PST West Sacramento, Yolo County -- A police officer stopped Robert Sanchez one night in April as he walked near his home in this blue-collar city, though Sanchez wasn't suspected of committing a crime.
Sanchez, 18, admitted he was a member of the Norteño gang, the officer said. He also wore a gang tattoo and was with another Norteño, his sister's fiance.
"You are being served with a permanent gang injunction," the officer told him.
With that, Sanchez lost the right to move freely in his neighborhood. He's now prohibited indefinitely from hanging out with more than 125 other alleged Norteños, some of them relatives, in a wide swath of the city. He must also obey other restrictions, including a 10 p.m. curfew.
The court injunction against the Norteño "Broderick Boys," named for the neighborhood where many of them live, has stirred controversy since a judge issued it nearly two years ago, dividing residents who feel safer because of it from those who see it as racial profiling.
West Sacramento's experience may be a lesson for San Francisco, where City Attorney Dennis Herrera secured the city's first anti-gang injunction last month and is preparing to ask for more.
Herrera's action against the Oakdale Mob is narrower than the West Sacramento injunction, applying to a housing project in Bayview-Hunters Point instead of a 3-square-mile "safe zone" in West Sacramento. But it raises many of the same legal and cultural issues.
The toughest question is whether the injunctions work well enough to justify their rigidity.
"It's absolutely worked," said Jeff Reisig, the Yolo County prosecutor who sought the injunction before his successful run this year to become district attorney. "The fact that San Francisco has decided to pursue a gang injunction is telling. This works, and it's legal."
Taking a break from his custodial job at a West Sacramento elementary school, Danny Velez, 56, said the injunction hurt his son, even though the 15-year-old has nothing to do with the Norteños.
"Ever since this injunction, it's been pure hell to raise a son. They've been profiled and segregated," Velez said of young Latinos. "He's constantly harassed about whether he's in a gang, by teachers and by police."
Sanchez, who is on probation for a robbery conviction, concedes he is a member of the Norteños("Northerners"), one of two prison-based gangs that have warred since the 1960s. Rival Sureños ("Southerners") are often newer arrivals to the country. Norteños claim the color red; Sureños wear blue.
Sanchez is looking for work and says he grudgingly complies with the injunction. But at some point, he said, he'll inevitably violate one of the rules.
"I'm going to get in trouble like I was banging," he said, "when I'm not banging anymore."
West Sacramento's safe zone covers roughly one-seventh of the city, including the heavily Mexican American and Russian American neighborhoods of Broderick and Bryte, across the Sacramento River from the state capital. Latinos make up 30 percent of the city's 45,000 people.
Once an industrial backwater isolated by the river, West Sacramento started growing after residents voted to incorporate in 1987 and the city improved roads and water supplies. When the Oakland A's minor-league affiliate built a ballpark seven years ago, it chose West Sacramento.
Some residents, like Ray Martinez, are excited about the growth. "Cleaning up the neighborhood is good," said Martinez, 48, a floor designer who lives in Broderick. "If it wasn't for the real estate market, I don't think the police would be doing this."
Others think gentrification is harming longtime residents and refer to a wall that separates Broderick from a housing development called the Rivers as the "Great Wall of Divide."
"What we've learned is you follow the money," said Rebecca Sandoval, a Sacramento activist who has organized injunction opponents. "Wherever the developers go, up comes an injunction."
Reisig, the county prosecutor, said development had nothing to do with the suit he filed in December 2004. It called the Broderick Boys the city's "most powerful criminal street gang," with 350 members acting in packs to deal drugs, rob and assault.
In a move that still angers opponents, prosecutors gave notice of the suit to just one alleged member, and he lived in Rancho Cordova, 15 miles away. Reisig wrote in a court filing that the alleged Norteño, Billy Wolfington, would spread the word to compatriots.
Wolfington didn't show up in court to contest the injunction, however, and neither did any other alleged members of the gang. With no opposition in attendance, Superior Court Judge Thomas Warriner granted a permanent injunction on Feb. 3, 2005.
Police have since served about 130 alleged Norteños, said Lt. David Farmer. The group, which includes some women and non-Latino whites, also was placed in a gang database accessible to police around the state.
In San Francisco, attorneys say they will file evidence in court against alleged Oakdale Mob members before serving them. But in West Sacramento, police officers carry papers so they can serve people on the spot who fit criteria such as admitting Norteño membership or having visible gang tattoos.
The result has been a polarizing debate. Reisig wrote in a filing that "nobody who lives in the safety zone is immune from a random and violent assault by the Broderick Boys," an assertion rejected as too strong by many city leaders and residents.
"It's not as though you couldn't walk down the streets of Broderick without being gunned down," said Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, who supports the injunction.
West Sacramento recorded two homicides last year; San Francisco had 96, or about three times as many per capita.
The primary victims of Norteños, many residents said, were teenagers who were recruited or attacked for being Sureños -- even if they weren't. West Sacramento has some Sureños, but they are not subject to the injunction.
"Three or four years ago, it was pretty bad. If you walked to the store, they'd ask you what gang you're representing, and you had to be very careful," said Antonio Ramirez, 21, a construction worker who lives in Broderick. "Usually it's not only one (gang member who approaches), but around six or seven."
Ramirez emigrated from Mexico in 2000 and said he was soon threatened because he had Sureño friends. As a result, he said, he dropped out of West Sacramento's River City High School as a junior. He said he believes the injunction has made a positive difference.
But some injunction opponents say there is no such thing as the Broderick Boys, and that the injunction singles out people who aren't connected by a chain of command.
Martha Garcia, a former state worker who heads the anti-injunction Americans for Freedom, said those who have been served are either "wannabes," or Norteños who participate in the gang only in prison, or people who did nothing worse than grow up together in a hardscrabble neighborhood.
Lt. Farmer acknowledged that not everyone who has been served with the injunction is a Broderick Boy. Some on the list, like Sanchez, grew up elsewhere.
"It really had to do with Norteños," Farmer said. "It's like throwing a net out in the ocean, and you're trying to catch salmon. You're going to catch other fish."
Prosecutors and police reject the argument that a person can be a Norteño but not be involved in crime, saying the gang itself is an organized criminal enterprise.
Mayor Cabaldon called the argument that no gang exists "an unfortunate tactic" that "distracted from the question of how we can make this as surgical as possible to avoid problems."
Garcia's nephew, Richard "Trino" Savala, said his aunt's assertions contradict his own experience. A former boxer who became a gang and addiction counselor after serving time in prison, he said he was one of the original Broderick Boys in the 1970s, when he sold drugs and was shot twice.
The Broderick Boys, he said, started with young men drawn to Cesar Chavez's farm labor movement but became more powerful, aggressive and violent.
"Over the years, homeboys kept coming out of prison and promoting this stuff to their little boys and cousins and nephews," said Savala, who left the gang in 2000. "The goal was to put fear in the neighborhood and allow them to profit from selling drugs."
Savala said some people, including his brother, have been unfairly served with the injunction, but he still had harsh words for opponents of the action.
"They're in so much denial," he said. "You have parents who want to point the finger at the police and the schools. They need to open their eyes."
The legal questions in the case have been as intense as the cultural debate. One involves an "opt-out" application offered by police. Those served with the court order can sign a form saying they "renounce any actual or alleged membership" with the Broderick Boys or Norteños. With police approval, they can escape the injunction's restrictions.
Just three people served with the injunction have opted out, Farmer said. Injunction opponents say the reason is simple: The form is an implicit confession.
Robert Sanchez said he wouldn't sign the form because he would be considered a snitch.
"That's paperwork on you," he said. "You're going to get f -- up by your own homies."
The American Civil Liberties Union has tried to fight the injunction, representing four men who said they weren't given fair notice of the initial hearing. A judge, though, said the ACLU couldn't represent the gang's interests if its clients claimed they weren't members. An appeal is pending.
"You don't want to go to court and concede one of the main points they have to prove," ACLU attorney Jory Steele said.
Whether the injunction has made the community safer is difficult to determine. Yolo County Public Defender Barry Melton said the strategy has worked "to some degree. But if I imposed a curfew in the Tenderloin, crime would go down there, too. It's been used more than anything else for monitoring, to stop folks and control them."
Farmer said crime is down in Broderick but said he could not give statistics. Reisig said violent crime prosecutions of Broderick Norteños dropped 80 percent in the year after the injunction.
Reisig said he has prosecuted more than 75 violations of the injunction; one person served 90 days. Melton said two fathers were detained for attending the same youth baseball game, an account Farmer called inaccurate.
Police and opponents disagree on whether officers are honoring the injunction's exceptions for school and church, or traveling to legitimate business and entertainment activities at night.
Standing outside his apartment with family members on a recent afternoon, Sanchez said the injunction was not reforming Norteños. He suggested, though, that it might have some benefit for West Sacramento.
"Hell no, people are just getting smarter," he said. "They're taking it to Sacramento."
His 17-year-old brother, Angel -- who sipped from a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor -- and his sister's fiance, Jesse Contreras Jr., 20, each said they had been served with papers.
"How can I provide for my family?" asked Contreras, a warehouseman whose fiancee is seven months pregnant. "What if we run out of diapers at 11 at night and I have to go to the store?"
Each said it was hard for young men to avoid Norteño membership when, in Contreras' words, "it's all around you. It's never OK to bang, but you grow up in it."
By continuing to identify themselves as Norteños, they said, they were not admitting to being involved in crime.
"You're still where you're from," said Contreras, who wore a striped red polo shirt common among Norteños, "but you're not acting stupid anymore."
E-mail Demian Bulwa at [email protected].
Oakland: A Plague Of Killing 148 Homicides (2006)
OAKLAND: A PLAGUE OF KILLING
CITY’S HOMICIDES AFFECT LITTLE ONES IN BIG WAYS
Children who lose a parent are angry, confused, in pain
Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006
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Oakland Homicides Big effects on little ones
(12/28)
Life is good after brush with death
(12/23)
Life is good after brush with death
(12/23)
Quilting helps mom cope with pain of twins' deaths
(12/20)
Grieving mom's mission of mercy
(12/17)
Homicide victims remembered
(12/7)
Busy times for Oakland funeral director
(12/2)
For victims' families, nothing left but grief
(11/6)
Slayings cloud Brown's legacy
(10/23)
Drill No. 1: Don't get killed
(9/13)
Hope faces off against crime
(9/10)
Teen slayings rock Oakland
(8/20)
A Plague of Killing: Special multimedia package
Mykaael O'Brien has nightmares that people are shooting at him. Precious Brewer sometimes sees her father's face when looking at strangers. Destiny Quintero sees the moon and says it's her daddy smiling at her.
All three are children who have lost a parent or close relative to homicide in Oakland.
<< Audio Slideshow: 'Please Daddy, come back' >>
So is Jalen Bryant, who spent six weeks mourning a close cousin's death before another relative was killed last week. Asha Parvins had chilling nightmares about her uncle's death for four years, but "now I only have sad dreams."
Victim advocates estimate that for every person killed in a homicide -- there have been 148 in Oakland so far this year, compared with 94 last year -- there is at least one child who has lost a parent.
Kids scarred by the loss respond in different ways.
"Many children just close down, and they give you very little to work with," said Berkeley therapist Lenora Poe, who has counseled more than 250 children of homicide victims in the past 23 years. "It can take a long time to draw them out and help them deal with their loss. These children are angry, confused and in a lot of pain. They often blame themselves when a parent is killed. It's really true that these homicides destroy much more than one person."
These kids often are raised solely by the remaining parent, a grandparent or an aunt, an arrangement that can present additional stresses for the caretaker, said Poe, who also facilitates a support group for custodial grandparents, including many raising the children of homicide victims.
"They are faced with a double whammy," Poe said. "I see many grandparents who take over the parenting role while they are still grieving. They don't have time to grieve, and they feel like they have to put their feelings aside to help the kids."
Ericka Byrd, 24, knows that pull between dealing with her own numbing grief and trying to be strong for her two children, who mourn their father differently.
"I have a lot of trouble sleeping. My poor son has nightmares," Byrd said. "I feel helpless in this situation."
Byrd's longtime boyfriend, Michael O'Brien, was shot to death Aug. 19 in his old neighborhood just east of Lake Merritt. An aspiring songwriter, O'Brien left behind 8-year-old son Mykaael and 5-year-old daughter Mykaela. O'Brien's son responded by becoming very quiet, having nightmares and sometimes just crying alone. "I miss my best friend," he said.
His sister keeps asking her mother questions, such as: "Why would someone kill my daddy?" In a presentation for her kindergarten, Mykaela said that if she could have just one wish, "I would have another day with my daddy."
"This has been the hardest ... four months of my entire life," Byrd said. "I don't understand their grief. My father is still around. My grief is different. I lost my mate."
Byrd knew the holidays were stressful, so she decided to take a month's leave of absence from work. "I took the children to Disneyland for Christmas," Byrd said. "It was too depressing to spend Christmas at home without Michael." Just before they made the drive to Southern California, they stopped by the cemetery where O'Brien is buried and decorated his grave with Christmas ornaments.
Elizabeth Quintero, 23, also had a lot of fear about how she would get through the holiday season. Her husband, Brink's guard Anthony "Jimmy" Quintero, was killed in a robbery in September. Two suspects have been charged with murder in that case. But her own large family and her in-laws "surrounded us with love," Quintero said. "We weren't alone at all. Christmas went better than I expected."
Destiny, 3, often looks at photos of her father and tells her mother that he is watching them from heaven, which she describes as a place inside the moon.
"She gets on the play phone at day care and says she is talking to her daddy," Quintero said. "Then she hangs up and says that Daddy says he loves her. Every time she talks about him, it's with a smile."
Roniyah Mack, 5, lost her father twice -- to prison and then to homicide -- but she gets a big smile when she speaks of "my daddy in heaven." Ronald Mack Jr. was shot to death Oct. 6, less than two months after his release from state prison. The case remains unsolved.
Roniyah treasures several letters that he wrote to her from prison. In the handwritten notes, he refers to her as "my princess" and "shining star." He promised to care for her. Roniyah keeps the letters in a special purple box and asks grown-ups to read them to her every so often.
Jalen Bryant, 11, had six weeks to mourn the unsolved shooting death of "my best cousin," Wayne Gordon Jr., 18, killed Nov. 4 in East Oakland. "I wish I had one more time to play with him," Jalen said. "I can't believe he got shot. ... I just cried and cried."
Then on Dec. 20, Anthony Johnson, the father of another cousin, was killed and Jalen spent the Christmas weekend helping to console other family members.
"I really didn't want to expose him to this," said his mother, Omesa Ingram, who moved to Pittsburg three years ago from East Oakland. "I feel that to raise a young man, a black man, in Oakland is extremely hard and dangerous. There are too many young men hanging on corners and too much killing."
Christmas was tricky also for Seretha Woodland and Precious Brewer.
Woodland had already moved out of Oakland, partially because of safety concerns, even before her boyfriend, Purnell Brewer Sr., was killed Jan. 18. Their son, Purnell Jr., is now 17 months old.
"I moved again before Christmas," said Woodland, who asked that the East Bay city where she now lives remain unpublished. "I didn't want to spend Christmas in the same house without him. All the memories -- it would just be too hard. I felt like we needed a fresh start."
Woodland also spends most weekends with Purnell Jr.'s half-sister, Precious Brewer, 5, who lives with Brewer's parents in Oakland. Precious said she still has vivid memories of "my daddy" and frequently wonders about him. Woodland tells Precious stories about her father's kindness and sense of humor, but she sometimes has to fight back tears while recounting memories.
Each child and adult may respond differently to trauma, counselors said, and each may respond better to a different treatment.
"In many cases, the whole family should come in and be evaluated," said Dr. Herb Schreier, a psychiatrist at Children's Hospital Oakland who has worked with many kids traumatized by violence. "There's no simple answer. The evaluation has to be done on the whole family system."
Asha Parvins didn't lose a parent, but the unsolved killing of her uncle has haunted her for more than four years. She was 13 when Daniel Knowell was killed in West Oakland on May 5, 2002.
"He was really more like a big brother than an uncle," said Asha. "He was the main role model in my life. I saw him almost every day. He told me how to take care of myself around boys. He warned to 'stay smart' and would get down on me when I messed up."
Asha had nightmares for years. Now a senior at Piedmont High School, she said her dreams about him recently changed: "They are sweet but sad."
"I dream that he is still there, watching me grow up into a woman, making jokes with me," Asha said. "Then I wake up and I realize he's dead. I get real sad."
About the series With homicides in Oakland at the highest count in more than a decade, The Chronicle is expanding its coverage with a multimedia project that shows the human impact of violence in the city.
The project is the result of more than four months of work, and dozens of people agreed to share their stories. They include the people left behind by the homicides, including the children of those who died, the subject of today's story.
The online report
Podcasts, audio slideshows, videos and photo galleries with dozens of images at sfgate.com/oaklandhomicides/ :
-- Remembering the dead: A list of this year's homicide victims, with profiles, photos, links to articles and audio clips from family members and friends.
-- Mapping the homicides: Interactive graphics show where each of more than 550 homicides in the past five years has occurred, plus the locations of the city's 365 liquor stores, which residents and police have targeted as magnets for crime.
-- Living amid the killing: Residents tell how the violence has affected them, in audio and video reports.
-- Voices of concern: A variety of thoughts about the problem, plus possible solutions.
-- How to give help or get help: A list of resources.
E-mail Jim Zamora at [email protected].
