Cultivating A Better Community

Last Saturday morning, as is my custom, I ran past my son's elementary school. Someone had scrawled graffiti on the marquee out front. The security measures available to a public school are slim and none, so the "artist" was able to "tag" both sides of the sign and wander off into the night. I made a mental note to myself to come back up the hill before the day was out to remove the offending marks. I made a mental note to be relieved at the relative low end of the crime spectrum on which we found ourselves in Oakland.
Imagine my surprise when, on Wednesday afternoon, I heard that Oakland police were raiding a house across the street from the school. Six people were arrested and six million dollars of marijuana was seized. There were five different houses, and only one of them was across the street from the school, and no shots were fired as the arrests were made "without incident." There was some pretty tense looking videotape on the news that night, but it was mostly a matter of hauling people and plants away in the aftermath. Our principal was asked if anybody at the school was aware of the raid or of any illegal activity at the house across from it.
"That wouldn't be information we'd be privy to," she said. "Even though that is very serious, that doesn't necessarily pose a threat to the campus."
Today as I was making my run up the hill, Jimmy Cliff's "Harder They Come" happened to come on my iPod. Welcome to the Mean Streets of Oaktown.