Community demands justice for Blueford

Photo: Gene Pepi

Alan Blueford, an 18-year-old Black student at Oakland’s Skyline High School, slated to graduate next month, was killed by Oakland police on May 6 in East Oakland, Calif. His family says that he and two friends were just waiting for some young women who planned to meet them on the corner of 90th and Birch streets when the cops approached them with guns drawn for no justifiable reason. Their crime? Being Black young men on a corner.

Oakland police are notorious for violence against Black youth. Blueford ran for two blocks, after which he was shot three times by one of the cops.The police wouldn’t even give out the name of the cop who shot him. Members of Blueford’s family went to a meeting of the Oakland City Council to demand some answers. Demanding justice, more than a hundred community members packed the chambers and the balconies in support.

The family’s next step is holding a rally at the Alameda District Attorney’s office on May 23. They are demanding the following: Release the name of the cop who shot Alan Blueford, take him off paid leave, fire him and charge him with ­murder.