These young men in the upper park area by the kids' paly area are not norteños, nor even gang-affiliated. A group of Norteños are in the lower part of the park. The young meb in the upper area have an informal agreement with the true gang affiliated Norteño guys in the creek area to occupy different locations. The upper park group is Salvadorian. Their familes all fled the violence there. they are basically lost newcomers. They are trying to survive.

They are acting in ways that are disagreeable and threatening to neighbors, and inappropriate, such as not communicating friendliness, putting a tent near the kids' play area, making a disgusting mess every day around where they hang out, smoking weed, drinking, peeing in the park, etc. At Peralta Hacienda, we are making every effort to communicate with them and bring them into some kind of positive relationship with society and with the park. We are currently employing a former gang-involved staff member who is also Salvadorian, and this strategy is definitely working. He is a genius and we want to employ him permanently, but our operational allocation from the City is just one one-hundredth that of the Oakland Museum and one thirtieth that of the African American Museum and Library, so we have no funds for staffing. We are hoping against hope that Councilmember Gallo can come up with discretionary funds to hire expert staff to help solve this
problem in a way that avoids the prision pipeline for these youth who have already lived ten lives in El Salvador and on their journeys north.

Call 211 to get them help.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Thank you for contacting OAK 311 regarding this matter. Please report this issue to the Oakland Police Department, Non-emergency Line, at (510) 777-3333 for the gang related activity or if your feeling threaten or unsafe in the park.

Thank you.

This content is currently blocked. The content is either under review by SeeClickFix or has been confirmed by SeeClickFix for violation(s) of SeeClickFix Terms of Use (https://www.civicplus.com/terms-of-service). Content that aligns with SeeClickFix Terms of Use will be posted, and content that does not align with our Terms of Use will not be permitted for public viewing.

Holly Alonso you sound like a social justice warrior. Know that this website is for cleaning up Oakland and that you will find little support here. We want these miscreants out of our parks, and we're going to get them out one way or another.

We don't need to "employ" any former Salvadorian gang members. All we need is some police to come in, arrest them, and put them in jail where they belong. That, or send them back to El Salvador. I'm happy with either solution. No need to handle criminals with little kid gloves!

Holly,
The employee is compassionate but he is not a "heinous" otherwise all the bad behaviors you mentioned would have stopped-they have not-they are a part of everyday in the park. Most of the individuals have red clothing of some sort so I'm not convinced that are not gang-affiliated.
Abe

The City of Oakland addressed this issue on 02/08/2019, service request #826310.