Youth slayings in Oakland leave scars
Violent deaths of youths in Oakland tear communities apart with grief, fear and regret, leaving wounds that never heal
Updated 11:10 pm, Saturday, March 9, 2013
A killing in Oakland comes twice a week on average.
In 2012, there were 131 homicides, and of those, 14 did not reach their 19th birthday.
The first week of 2013 was quiet. The second week saw four dead in one day, the youngest one just 17.
The numbers tell a simple story. Children are dying in Oakland, violent deaths on city streets, on porches, in parked cars.
Each time, they are added to the tally, their names and ages reported. Yet few outside the immediate circle ever see what the violent death of a child does to a community - the grief, regret and fear - felt hours, days, weeks or even a year later.
Chronicle photographer Lacy Atkins gained unprecedented access to the immediate mourning, the burials and the long-term grief that followed the killings of several Oakland teens.
These dead children made teenage mistakes - skipping school, smoking pot, selling drugs, petty theft, hitting on another guy's girl, wearing $300 shoes on the streets.
In the suburbs, those kinds of mistakes might get you chastised or grounded, but not killed.
But in Oakland, children live in a different world, one that assigns them to gangs by their address; where expensive shoes both buy prestige and mark youths as targets; where any kid could get hit by bullets just because.