Were not the Only Ones That Wanna Holler...

The Tazer does love real feelings on the city of Richmond.

This post has been moved to the front page to remind all of us what we're really fighting for.

Thanks to "speedy gonzales"...here's the comment, unedited:

Okay, in he words of the Tupac "I ain't mad atcha" but you all who post on here really need to check yourselves. This is beyond sad. This is pitiful.

The brothas on the corner are laughing at us!How are folks acting like they are criminals and calling each other criminals gonna solve a crime problem? Is this town completely devoid of real community?

Look at the example being set here. It makes us ALL look foolish. No wonder people laugh at Richmond. When we behave like we are doing right here, we become the equivalent of the stinky kid riding the bus. And unfortunately while SOME of us may have earned the funk, there are good people in this City tired of defending the insanity that goes on here in the name of all things golden.

There is an old African Proverb that says, "By the time the fools have learned the game, the players have dispersed." While this community sits up here bickering, we are wasting energy that could be devoted to trying to make our communities better.I want more for the Rich-town.

I want us to be talking about how we GET safe streets. How we MAKE development work for the people. How we IMPROVE the schools. How we RESTORE city services. Why can't we talk about that?I'll tell you why, because it is election year, and everybody-- I mean everybody is working for their team up in this camp.

The sad fact is that nobody really cares about the "Truth", because it doen't benefit them to care. The truth is something none of y'all wanna hear. The truth is there is only ONE team.

That is Richmond, plain and simple. Everybody has all these glib slogans, One Richmond, A better Richmond is possible, No more politics period, Working for a better Richmond, Richmond Rises. We're selling out our own slogans because we refuse to come to the table and debate the issues like adults-- no worse, like human beings! And yet, everytime I turn around I see another one of us pointing the finger at each other, when we have four finger point back at us.

So in the spirit of "open" conversation, I have a question. Is this a blog about debating the issues or is it really the political equivalent of the drudge report, sans the facts?

If I sound redundant it is only because I believe that the way we are going to solve these problems is to stop acting like five year olds and actually agree to look across the isle and come up with some solutions, and some compromise here.I'm tired of the conversation level here bordering on the fanatical, redundant and predictable.

Instead of calling people liars, *itches,pig lips, ugly, stupid, sockos, commies, and thugs, (which by the way,is NOT part of the solution) or hiding behind your rocks, let's be a BIT imaginative for a change. It is telling that I have not seen one of the posters in this strand debate the actual proposals on the ballot.

Not even ONE of you, except maybe the captain over there has actually evaluated any of the issues that are important to the people of this city in November.

You just chime in "un huh, yeah, I know that's right" but we don't discuss. Since there is no diversity in opinion, then I frankly don't even see why anybody bothers to comment. I mean why bother to think when you don't have to, right?

Which leads me to believe they really wanna co-sign. Which is cool, but be real about it if that is what it is. But, hey, I could be wrong.

So I'm gonna ask some real questions:

What tangible things can we do in the short and long term to impact crime in Richmond. Economic Development. Opportunity? The schools? Does anybody even THINK about that.

And you know, posting articles is cool, but how about posting some IDEAS up in this bad boy and let people respond, Tazer. >>>

>>>TAZER NOTE: We don't claim to be idea people or have all the answers speedy. We've created this blog to allow the people of this city to work on that. Your comments are a step in that process.<<<

Because you know I speak the truth when I say that the same folks that agree happy with the Times coverage today are the SAME folk that called it a racist rag, what, not SIX months ago?

Let me ask another, question, though. If we keep on doing the same old thing that we've always done, bickering with each other, not seriously debating the issues, giving each other roses with when we've got gats behind our back, this town will continue to stay the same old, petty, manipulative poor excuses we have always used, will this town ever change?

YOU know the answer. NO! People, my people,I tell you this not to put you down, but to build you up.

Richmond, we are better than this. We can move forward. We can be positive in our disagreements with each other.

We can change things. What we can't do is sit around like the old folks say, and play church. This is too serious. I think we can do better, folks, but we got to get right.I'm through ranting.

Speedy

Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler)

In today's Contra Costa Times, there's an editorial that says what we've been saying.

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CYNICAL PLOYS OF MAYOR

In the nearly five years since Irma Anderson became mayor of Richmond, there hasn't been a lot to celebrate in the "city of pride and purpose."

In 2004, years of financial mismanagement brought on a crumbling $35 million budget crisis that forced city officials to cut back or cut out services that most county residents take for granted.

And, of course, there is the crime issue. Street killings are out of control.

In the shadow of these, Anderson, who is running for re-election in November, is casting about for a campaign issue. She wants to portray herself to voters as a strong leader willing to take the bull by the horns -- she and the City Council do deserve credit for hiring City Manager Bill Lindsay. Overall, however, the Anderson we have come to know is a disappointingly ineffective, divisive gavel-banger.

Last week, Anderson did what she does best. She called a news conference -- this time, on the steps of the police department -- to announce that she had drafted a $6.5 million anti-violence initiative.

Anderson's anti-crime initiative wouldn't raise taxes. Rather, it would foolishly divert a big chunk of money from other strapped city departments to a police department that hasn't even been able to spend what it was already given to hire new officers.

That's because, despite Police Chief Chris Magnus' best efforts, few recruits want to risk life and limb in Richmond when they can go elsewhere for more pay and better working conditions.

Anderson's council colleagues wisely recognized her initiative for the financially reckless, shameless example of political grandstanding that it is. They voted it down.

But Anderson is determined to take the measure to the voters.

"I am here to take a stand against violence in our city," Anderson said. "From now on, I will not engage in anymore political rhetoric."

But using the tragic situation in Richmond to score political points is precisely what Anderson is doing.

For the longest time, Anderson insisted that crime in Richmond was not that bad. Despite the mounting body count, it was all a figment of the media's imagination.

Then, when it became clear that the problem wasn't going away, she tried to jump on the anti-crime bandwagon.

Yet the anti-violence conference that Anderson organized last year, on the heels of the Richmond Improvement Association-sponsored black-on-black crime summit, was long on pronouncements and short on follow-up.

It is a sad commentary that Anderson would now seek to capitalize upon a city's heartache when countless young lives have been lost.

Anderson needs to get 6,000 signatures in 180 days for her initiative to qualify for a special election, which incidentally would cost Richmond thousands of dollars.

Richmondites are understandably frustrated with the violence in their city. They're tired of the killing. They want results. But nothing that the mayor is proposing will make things better.

Shame on you, Madame Mayor. And shame on any other city politicians who are cynical enough to exploit Richmond's tragedy for their own political gain.

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Amen.

An open letter to the Tazer...

On behalf of Tazer friend Mike Ali we publish this letter:

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I wish to formally apologize to the individual that I had written about with regards to the campaign literaure in lasts week's edition. I wish it clearly to be stated for the record that I alone was responisble and accountable for that storyboard, as I did make some errors.

I apologize for any discomfort or inconvenience to that individual, as I should have done better on checking details. I wish to thank Gerald Hatchett for a for his being the mediator, so we could resolve this issue and move on.

Sincerely,
Michael Ali

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Thanks for that, Mike. Anyone else who wishes to speak to this incident, or any issue surrounding it, may do so. The Tazer stands open as the people's forum.

Man shot by police after car, foot chase

RICHMOND: Police say suspect raised gun toward San Pablo officer

By Karl Fischer
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A San Pablo police officer shot a man who authorities say pointed a gun during a chase behind Ford Elementary School on Sunday.

The suspect, 18-year-old Jorge Cazahonda, went to a local hospital for treatment before police booked him into County Jail in Martinez on suspicion of numerous felonies. The officer, whose name police withheld Monday, was not injured.

The officer saw the suspect driving on Vale Road shortly after 1 p.m. She recognized Cazahonda and remembered that his driver's license was suspended, Detective Sgt. Jim Creekmore said.

"(Cazahonda) did not pull over when the officer tried to stop him," Creekmore said. "It was not a high-speed chase; he simply would not pull over."

Police followed the 1987 Toyota to a cul-de-sac near the intersection of 26th Street and Maricopa Avenue in Richmond, where the driver stopped, got out and walked away. He ignored the officer's commands to return to the car, police said.

With a Richmond officer covering her, the San Pablo officer ran after Cazahonda and grappled with him as they ran, Creekmore said. They went through a hole in a cyclone fence and onto the school campus.

Police say Cazahonda dropped a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun as he ran behind the school; the officer and suspect both reached for the weapon.

"The officer had already drawn her weapon. She reaches down, but the suspect comes up with the gun. He turns away as if looking for some place to run, but sees he's at a sort of dead end," Creekmore said. "He raises the gun, at which time the officer delivers one round, striking him in the right arm."

The round grazed the suspect, who then threw the weapon on the school's roof. After a tussle, police brought him to the ground and arrested him.

San Pablo police and the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office are investigating separately, a standard practice in officer-involved shootings.

The shooting was the second in three months for San Pablo police on Richmond streets.

On May 29, a different San Pablo officer shot and killed 35-year-old Melvin Deshawn Hardnett after a car chase that ended in the Santa Fe neighborhood. Police said Hardnett was pulling a handgun from one officer's holster when another shot him.

The Contra Costa Coroner's Office has not yet scheduled an inquest for either case.

Reach Karl Fischer at 510-262-2728 or kfischer@cctimes.com.

Everything starts somewhere, but where does this end?

The Reverend Andre Shumake describes what could probably be called the galvanizing force behind today's Violence Prevention Movement: the murder of Terrance Kelly.

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JURY SELECTION SET TODAY IN TRIAL OVER ATHLETE'S DEATH

By Bruce Gerstman and Karl Fischer
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

RICHMOND - Groomed since he was a toddler to achieve a better life than what inner Richmond could provide, 18-year-old Terrance Kelly was preparing to leave for college Aug. 12, 2004.

But he never got to use his full-ride scholarship to the University of Oregon.

"I thought I could make it better for him," said his father, Landrin Kelly. "(Sports) could give him a free education."

The night of Aug. 12, 2004, someone shot the former De La Salle High School football star while he waited to pick up a friend in the Iron Triangle.

The death of the popular teenager outraged Richmond -- a city accustomed to turf battles, drugs and gang vendettas -- and breathed new life into the city's anti-violence movement.

"Here is a young man whose father had committed his life to helping him do well in school, go to college and lead a productive life," said the Rev. Andre Shumake, president of the Richmond Improvement Association. "To have him murdered on the streets of Richmond ... that was the final blow. Enough was enough."

Jury selection is set to begin today in the trial of 17-year-old Darren Pratcher, the teenager accused of killing Kelly over a simple grudge. Pratcher, who was charged as an adult, could serve 50 years in state prison if convicted.

He has pleaded not guilty.

An athlete from the start

Terrance Kelly came from a family of local athletes and, since he began to walk, his father wanted him to use sports to get a college education and become a professional athlete. At the day care agency his grandmother ran, his father taught him and the other toddlers to play T-ball.

At the age of 8, his father gave him a San Francisco 49ers outfit for Christmas and set up hitting bags in the back yard to practice blocking and running.

Landrin Kelly coached his son's baseball team through elementary school. He stayed on the sidelines while Terrance Kelly was in middle and high school, and attended all but two of his son's games.

"My life revolved around Terrance's," he said. "When you see your dad there, you're going to play harder to impress them."

Fred Harris has volunteered as a coach with the Richmond Steelers, a recreation organization, for 27 years and coached Terrance and his father on the Steelers' Pop Warner teams, He described Terrance Kelly as the kind of player who didn't care what position he played, so long as he could contribute.

Other players gravitated to him and looked up to him, Harris said. "Terrance was the kind of person we try and mold these kids into."

Terrance Kelly grew up in a family where education came as the first priority, said Landrin Kelly, who added that his mother sent him and his siblings to public schools outside of Richmond, as well as private Catholic schools. Terrance Kelly attended Catholic schools, graduating from De La Salle in Concord just months before he was killed.

Living in Richmond's Iron Triangle, he left his home at 6:30 a.m. for Concord and returned at 7:30 p.m., his father said. At night, he listened to music through headphones while doing homework to dull the constant distraction of police sirens outside his window.

He honed his abilities at De La Salle in football, basketball and baseball until his junior year, when he decided to focus on football.

"When a kid decides what he wants to do, he just wants to give it his all," Landrin Kelly said.

Attending the private school with kids from wealthier families sharpened his son's goals, Kelly said.

"He saw the fancy cars, and he knew where he came from," Landrin Kelly said. "By being exposed to that, he wanted nice things."

The night of Aug. 12, 2004, brought those goals to a halt.

The killing

The precise motive behind Terrance Kelly's death is unclear, but prosecutor David Brown says Pratcher disliked Terrance "for various personal reasons."

"It was a lot of personal animus from the defendant toward the victim," Brown said.

Pratcher's attorney, Jonathan Laba, could not be reached for comment.

According to the 2005 testimony of a witness to the grand jury, Pratcher had borrowed a rifle on the day of the killing. The Times is not naming witnesses to protect their safety.

Terrance Kelly arrived that evening at a home in the 300 block of Seventh Street in Richmond where his friend, the son of a woman his father was dating, was visiting his girlfriend.

Pratcher arrived moments later with his brother and friends, Pratcher's friend told the grand jury.

As Terrance Kelly waited in his car for his friend, Pratcher walked down the driveway and fired four shots into the vehicle, cocking the rifle each time, he said.

When Landrin Kelly got word of the shooting, he rushed to the scene without putting on shoes. His mother arrived and saw her grandson lying in the street.

"That ain't our baby, is it?" she cried out just before collapsing. She spent the next three days in the hospital and died two months later.

Today, Landrin Kelly wears an image of his son and his mother on a pendant hanging from his neck. It reads, "My Creator and My Creation."

He has remained angry at the teenager his son was waiting for and he has broken up with the boy's mother, he said.

"How can I be in a relationship where I'm mad at her son and will always be that way?" he said.

Richmond looks in the mirror

During the days after Terrance Kelly's death, Shumake and other faith leaders began agitating for meaningful dialogue about street violence.

Violence prevention became more of a collaborative enterprise in Richmond during late 2004 and early 2005, Shumake said.

"We wanted to hold town hall meetings in different parts of the city with an ultimate goal of having a larger meeting to bring the community together and develop some strategies," Shumake said.

Response from those meetings led to the Black-on-Black Crime Summit in June 2005, a gathering of community members and faith leaders who began planning ways to attack the roots of street violence -- namely poverty, lack of education and lack of economic opportunity -- from an African-American perspective.

Taking ownership of the issue was an important step for Richmond's black neighborhoods, Shumake said. In the past, city leaders shied away from race when talking about street violence, though most of the city's homicides involved black victims and suspects.

Shumake sees much more work to be done -- last year, 40 people were killed on city streets -- but he is optimistic that the progress will lead to better results in the future.

"After T.K. was killed, that was a wake-up call for the community to re-examine itself," Shumake said. "This is our problem, what are we going to do to fix it?"

Since his son's death, Landrin Kelly has devoted his time to help stop the violence by starting the Terrance Kelly Youth Foundation, where he organizes programs for low-income kids to get summer jobs, tutoring and to learn how to cook.

After his son was killed and before his mother died, Kelly said he pledged to his mother that he would focus his life in a positive direction.

"I promised I would help kids, and I promised I wouldn't retaliate in revenge for my son's death," Landrin Kelly said.

Staff writer John Geluardi contributed to this report.

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Please pray with us for the Kelly family, as well as all victims of violent crime. Now more than ever Richmond deserves a change for the better.