Oakland City Councilman Threatens To Quit Over City's Violence After Latest Homicide
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- A city councilman is threatening to quit over violence in his city after a 21-year-old father was killed as he left for work from his Oakland hills home Tuesday morning.
Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid said he feels like a failure after making a promise nearly two decades ago to his constituents that he would make Oakland a place where they could raise a family.
"And I don't have an answer for stopping it. You can create job opportunities, you can counsel young people, but it's them that make the choice. I don't know how you reconnect the African-American families," Reid told KPIX 5.
The most recent homicide, the eighteenth for the year, took place around 7 a.m. Tuesday in a part of the city that hasn't seen a homicide in decades.
21-year-old Marcus West Jr. was shot outside his home where he lived with his grandmother. She witnessed the aftermath of the shooting.
"I saw his body, covered him up with a blanket, put a towel over his head wound, and I saw him take his last breath. I prayed with him," West's grandmother Jinnie said.
Reid said his son worked with West, and knew him to be quiet and respectful. But, Reid was at a loss as to how to save African-American and Latino lives.
"This is a thrown away life, and some of these kids don't know nothing but this," Reid said.