Riots!

Returning to work today was both exciting and disheartening as I climbed out of the Oakland 19th street BART station to a patchwork mess. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed having last Thursday and Friday off but it gives me great sadness to think about the reasons why I had the days off. In fact I was locked out of the building and asked not to return to work until Monday morning. Why... because down town Oakland erupted in riots again on Thursday July 8th. The verdict was released in the BART police officer shooting case of Oscar Grant. Few stores along Broadway escaped looting and stores like Footlocker, Sears, and some jewelry shops took the hardest hits. I wonder when some of the stores will reopen. Every single window in the Sears store is still boarded up while the neighboring stores and banks only have a few boarded up windows. Thinking back to the LA riots spurred on by the Rodney King case, some of those stores never came back. It also breaks my heart to know that most of those arrested that evening don't even live in the Oakland community.