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A bloody fistfight broke out among rival gang members at Richmond City Hall on Friday, according to police.
Seven men from different parts of the city brawled in a third-floor suite that houses the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, director Devone Boggan said.
He said all of the men involved in the melee are enrolled in the office’s “Operation Peacemaker” fellowship and happened to show up at the office at Richmond’s Civic Center at the same time unexpectedly.
Police received several 911 calls from City Hall reporting the fight, and found blood splattered across the office where the fight happened, which is located above council chambers.
The city of Richmond is all abuzz about a blood-spattered brawl at City Hall after which everyone — including the alleged gang members involved and a city office responsible for operating anti-violence programs — clammed up to police.
The incident devolved into an all-out brawl that left at least one person bloodied, apparently from a broken nose. When it was all over, officers found blood, broken dishes and upended furniture in an office break room. There was enough blood that police called in a Crime Scene Cleaners crew, which typically mops up what’s left behind at homicides or suicides.
But that’s all police could do. Investigators have yet to identify any suspects, or even any victims, police Capt. Mark Gagan said Tuesday. “We’re trying to solve a violent crime and not able to get pivotal pieces of information,” Gagan said.
Gagan said his department needed to “bolster our relationship” with the ONS, formed in 2007 to “build partnerships and support initiatives that create greater neighborhood and community well-being.”
The office’s director, DeVone Boggan, downplayed the incident Tuesday.
“Everybody got up and walked away alive,” Boggan said. “They did not kill one another. I feel like this is a sign of progress with our work.”
Some of those involved were members of three rival gangs in Richmond who had shown up to pick up privately supplied monthly stipends of up to $1,000 for proving to city staff that they were following a “life map” attending counseling or conflict-resolution sessions, undergoing mental-health therapy and paying things like parking tickets and child support, Boggan said.
Boggan denied that his office was stonewalling, saying, “That’s the first time I’ve heard that term associated with me.” He said he has liaisons and contacts who tip him off when one of the 40 young men who are paid as part of “Operation Peacemaker Fellowship” gets into trouble.
Councilman Corky Booze said Boggan’s statements didn’t wash. As director, Boggan should know when people are showing up to collect checks and recognize the “volatility of these folks,” Booze said. And “why would you even bring those people to City Hall like that?”
Three days after a gang brawl splattered blood across the walls and floors of a Richmond city office, police cannot identify suspects or even victims -- because their city co-workers will not cooperate in the investigation. Documents obtained by Bay Area News Group show that Richmond police failed to retrieve that basic information Friday from staff at the Office of Neighborhood Safety, which police described as "stonewalling" in their reports.
"The investigating officers interviewed a group of ONS clients and employees inside the office," wrote Sgt. Albert Walle in a police report Friday. "There was a reluctance to speak with the officers because I heard a chorus of 'I ain't seen nothin' from both the clients and office workers."
That, despite copious blood in the office break room, and on the clothing and bodies of several present.
Trouble touched off when verbal barbs between groups escalated into dish-smashing, furniture-overturning violence in the third-floor office, above the City Council Chambers.
Police confirmed Monday afternoon that the person or people who tracked blood across the city building remain unidentified. Nor did police identify any suspects.
"What we do know is that it appears someone was seriously hurt and that possibly weapons were involved," Capt. Mark Gagan said Monday. "It's what we don't know that is more concerning. We have not received the cooperation necessary from the individuals involved in this incident or those who witnessed it to identify a victim, determine the extent of their injuries, or obtain an understanding of the motivation for this apparent crime."
Officers followed a trail of blood from the elevator to the ONS office. They found a break room covered with blood, broken dishes and overturned furniture. Enough blood covered the floor that the department later called Crime Scene Cleaners, a service normally reserved for cleaning homicide scenes.
Officers had not arrested anyone as of Monday, in part because ONS staff would not release a list of people present in the office at the time of the brawl. "I waited in the office for approximately a half-hour while (a supervisor) sat typing at her computer while seemingly gathering the requested the requested information," Walle wrote. "I was eventually told by (the supervisor) that she would not release the information
Originally posted by NewsWorthy
This is the Madness I live in.... I've made a few Threads about the area I live in and how It's getting out of control. I live in Vallejo California which is the neighboring City to Richmond and the reason this happened is the people that run the programs around here, are Family to the gangmembers. So of course they enroll their Nieces and Nephews in free money programs, it's easy free money for Family. Thankfully nobody was killed because if you look at the murder rate per person of Richmond Ca, it's an incredibly Dangerous place.
When the Mare Island Military Base closed down the whole area here turned to poverty in just a few years
Richmond police sources, meanwhile, confirmed they are also investigating another incident last week involving an ONS "neighborhood change agent" whom Contra Costa sheriff's deputies caught in a compromising position with a federal probationer.
On Oct. 11, three days before the City Hall brawl, a deputy investigated a call about a suspicious car parked in unincorporated North Richmond. "It appeared the two occupants were involved in a sexual act," the deputy wrote in the police report.
The driver, a 43-year-old Richmond woman, "is an employee of the city of Richmond and was on duty, in her city of Richmond vehicle," the deputy wrote.
Her passenger, a 32-year-old man, "smiled and stated, 'Whatever she said is fine with me,' " according to the report.
The deputy described the man as a street gang member. The deputy wrote of the employee: "She has told me in the past it is her duty to 'hang out' with certain individuals in North Richmond."
"She told me she helps to curb the violence, illegal narcotics business and other gang-related crimes by hanging out with certain individuals in North Richmond and encouraging them not to commit crimes."
www.ci.richmond.ca.us...
Grant for Outreach
Richmond Receives Funding To Increase Human Service Activity For Active Gang Members And Violent Offenders
Richmond, CALIF
Richmond/Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) in partnership with a select group of Community Based Organizations, has been awarded $400,000 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over two years to expand outreach activities and services to youth and young adults most likely to be perpetrators or victims of gun violence.
“This California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention (CalGRIP) initiative investment will allow Richmond to expand the partnership and services of the RCWC,” stated Office of Neighborhood Safety Director DeVone L. Boggan, “It provides our City with a vital opportunity to enhance our reach and menu of service activities on behalf of the city’s most vulnerable population of youth and young adults. Once again, we feel truly fortunate to be funded by the Governor’s California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CalGRIP).”
The CalGRIP Initiative grant will be overseen by ONS and will provide funding for expanding street outreach service opportunities in North and South Richmond, provide gang intervention, life skills, pre-employment training, entrepreneurship and employment placement for extremely difficult to serve youth and young adult populations, as a means of addressing violence in their community.
Originally posted by PsykoOps
Yeah instead of trying to encourage and reward these people for attempting to go back to normal life we should just force them. Use the stick instead of the carrot... that'll work...
Originally posted by GovtFlu
reply to post by billy197300
"Why would you live in a place like that? 2nd "
As if this is the only area where gangs fight and people have sex in cars.. uniquely Californian behavior
Witnesses rarely get involved in gang related cases, nothing unusual there either.
Originally posted by 3n19m470
This is retarded...
I wonder if the director is knowingly involved with funding illegal activities?l
Originally posted by jdub297
Originally posted by 3n19m470
This is retarded...
I wonder if the director is knowingly involved with funding illegal activities?l
I would not be surprised to find that he and his prostitute staffers are getting kick-backs from the gangsters to keep quiet and cover up other things.
After 4 years of "progress," the gangsters are still gangsters; but they're now emboldened enough to commit felonies on government property and can count on their "Neighborhood Safety" pimps and suppliers to keep it covered up! All without any negative consequences.
They should termoinate the program, the staff, and arrest all of their thug beneficiary co-conspirators.
jw