Old-Timers Combat Crime in Tough Oakland Neighborhood
A group of old-timers has banded together to fight crime in a rough neighborhood of East Oakland where drug dealers operate openly and shootings are routine events.
They patrol the area, looking for trouble--not trouble to get into but trouble to stop.
“That’s my mission,” said Hazel Manica, 74. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do. I just hope God gives me the time to do it.”
She and a friend, Mary Hodge, 62, are members of Oakland’s Community Safety Patrol, which has 72 members. They and their friends, who range in age from 60 to 84, walk their neighborhoods three or four hours a day to serve as police lookouts.
“Sometimes I patrol all day if I smell trouble brewing,” Manica said.
Patrol members wear distinctive canary yellow jackets and caps. They carry two-way radios and shriek alarms.
She said that when she sees a collection of young people hanging around a bar, “I just go up and tell them to please leave.”
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